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A M E M O I R 



NAMES OF PLACES 



IN THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK, EMBRACING THOSE PORTIONS FORMERLY 

KNOWN AS 



NEW NETHERLAND, 



ALSO, ON THE 



NAMES OF PERSONS, &€., 



EGBERT BENSON. 



I 



MEMOIR, 



READ BEFOKE 



THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



STATE OF NEW YORK, 



DECEMBER 31, 1816. 



BY EGBERT BENSON 



-Cui (muscm) nomen asilo 



Komanuin est, oestron Graii vertere vocantes. — Viro. 



[Re-printed from a copy, with the Author's last corrections.] 



^^^^^;^o^^-o^G.,^ 




NEW YORK: 
BARTLETT & WELFORD, 

NO. 7 ASTOR HOUSE. 



1848. 



e.^ 



NOTE. 



The author of the following Memoir was one of the founders of the New- 
York Historical Society, and its President during a period of eleven years. He 
was a native of New York, born June 21, 1746, and graduated at King's (now 
Columbia,) College in 1765 — studied the profession of the law, and settled at 
Red Hook, Dutchess county, in 1772. During the revolution, he took an active 
and conspicuous part in favor of whig measures ; was a member of the first 
legislative assembly of the State, elected in 1777, and during the same year was 
appointed attorney general, which office he held until 1787. He was one of the 
six representatives from New York in the first Congress, remaining in office 
until 1794. He was thence called to the bench of the Supreme Court of the 
State, in which office. Chancellor Kent has said of him that " he did more to 
reform the practice of that court, than any member of it ever did before, or ever 
did since."* In 1803, he was appointed chief judge of the second circuit United 
States Court for New York ; but by a change of the judiciary system which fol- 
lowed in 1802, he was deprived of tiie office. Not long afterwards, he removed 
to Jamaica, Long Island, where he resided during the rest of his life. " Here 
(says Chancellor Kent,) he continued to be blessed with a protracted old age, 
' exempt from scorn or crime,' and that ' glided in modest innocence away.' 
His writings never received the attention which the good, contained under a 
forbidding exterior, justly demanded ; for by his constant efforts to attain sen- 
tentious brevity, he became oftentimes obscure. This great and good man sur- 
vived all his contemporaries, and seems to have died almost unknown and for- 
gotten by the profession, which he once so greatly adorned." He died at 
Jamaica, 24th August, 1833, at the age of 87 years. 

* Pee Sketch of the Lile of Judge Benson from the pen of Chancellor Kent, in Thomp- 
son's Long Island, ii. 487. 



Wm. VttiiNuiUcii, /''/ 



M E M O I R.' 



The subject of this Memoir, if so it may be termed, will 
be NAMES ;f chiefly names of places, and further restricted 
to places in that portion of our country, once held and 
claimed by the Dutch by right of discover}', and by them 
named New Netherland ; to be described, generally, as 
bounded on the east by the Connecticut, and on the west 
by the Delaware, and a space in breadth, adjacent to the 
farther bank of each, the extent of it not now to be ascer- 
tained ; but, doubtless, as far as was judged needful to se- 
cure the exclusive use of the rivers. 

Held by right of discovery — a right gravely questioned 
by some, and furnishing matter for wit and pleasantry to 
others; because, with deference to both, not justly appre- 
hended by either. An understood conventional law between 
the maritime nations of Europe, to prevent interferences 
otherwise to be apprehended, that the discovery of territory 
should enure to the benefit of the sovereign by whose sub- 
jects made. The benefit, where the territory inhabited, a 
right, in exclusion of other sovereigns and their subjects, to 
purchase, from the uncivilized occupants, the soil ; their 
right to which recognised by the Dutch in the first instance, 
and afterwards by the EngHsh on the surrender of the col- 
ony to them, in 1G64, and ever regarded by both, with the 
best faith. No grant to their own people without a previ- 
ous Indian jnirchase, as it was termed — no purchase with- 
out a previous license for it — the sale under the superin- 
tendence of an authorised magistracy, in quality as guar- 
dians for the Indians ; and hence complaints from them of 
injury, either from their own mistakes or from imposition 
in the purchasers, rare, notwithstanding we meet with a 

* See Note I. t See Note 11. 



4 BENSON S MEMOIE. 

part of the consideration not more definitely expressed, than 
as consisting- of '• some liandsful of ])owderJ^ 

If asked, whence the inducement in selecting the sub- 
ject, a mere research, furnishing little to please, perhaps 
less to instruct ? my answer will simply be, that nothing 
relative to the history of country — the soil that gave hirth 
— "the place of our fathers' sepulchres^ — "the paternal 
seats, our unceasing desire it 7nay he granted us ourselves 
to die there," — was never with others, and I trust will never 
be with us, wholly uninteresting. The English, when 
speaking of their country, call it England; when speaking 
of it with emphasis or emotion, at times. Old England; 
still only its name on the map — the Dutch, when speaking 
of their country, always by a name peculiar to themselves, 
Het Vaderlandt, the Father Land. 

The order to be observed, will be generally the primitive 
Indian, and the subsequently successive Spanish, Dutch, 
and English names. 

As authorities,* among others, a reference will be un- 
derstood to be to the Theatrum Terrarum Orbis, of Ortelius, 
surnamed the Ftolemy of his time, published in 1572; the 
NiEWEE Werldt, New World, of De Laet, published in 
1G25, and the same work in Latin, published in J 633 ; the 
Besciiryvinge van Nieuwe Nederlandt, Description of New 
Netherlands by ^ cin Der Donck, after a residence here of 
some years, published in 1656; and the Brandende Veen, 
a burning pile of turf, a collection of sea-charts, with notes^ 
by Roggeveen, published in 1675; all of them, it must be 
admitted, imperfect, and in very many instances erroneous, 
but probably not more so than others, who, at the same pe- 
riod, attempted the geography, and to borrow the appella- 
tion just cited, of this, to them. New World ; from necessity, 
however, those named must serve as guides, aware, at the 
same time, that while ive follow, there must still he a reliance 
on our own circumspection. 

INDIAN NAMES. 

It may be a question, w'hether the Indians had general 
names for large tracts of country? The Five Nations, or, 
as heretofore, not unusually distinguished by us, our Indi- 
ans, as residing within our jurisdiction, the Mohocks, the 
Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Caj'ugas, and the Senecas, had 

* See Note III. 



BEXSON S MEMOIR. 5 

no general name for their domain, or the parts of it, al- 
though separated by duly definite limits, the distinct pro- 
perty of each. The extensive, and, as relatively to them, 
south and southwestern region, including at least a portion 
of the Carolinas, they designated by referring to their gen- 
eral name for its inhabitants, the country of the Flat-Heads. 
They waged war with them, and it would seem implacably 
so. "^ Returning home from one of their expeditions, they 
brought oif, to replace those lost from among themselves in 
their fights, a whole people, the Tuscaroras, incorporating 
them into their confederacy as the sixth nation, and assign- 
ing them lands for residence, but withholding the power of 
alienation. 

On the other hand, there is abundant reason to believe, 
that, inland, every distinct space, scarcely more extensive 
than a neighborhood, and, on the coast, every river, bay, and 
cape, and every island, its contents not more than to serve 
as the abode of a single tribe, had a distinct name. Of the 
places on the coast, Tybee, Ocracock, Hatteras, Roanoke, 
Currituck, Chesapeake, Chingoteague, Squan, Nevesink, 
Rockaway, Nantucket, with its secondary Muskegut, are 
those only still known to our mariners by their Indian names. 
Montock, it is true, is Indian, but the appropriation of it, 
as a name for the extreme eastern point of Long Island, is 
by the English, and probably since the reign of Queen 
Anne, the point appearing on a chart of the coast, dedi- 
cated to her son the Duke of Gloucester, without a name. 
It is the name of the peninsula denoted in a petition to 
the government in 1080, for a license to purchase it from 
the Indians, " as a tract eastward of Easthampton, called 
Montauck;" and we find it at the same period called Mon- 
tauheM, and its sachem formally claiming, before th« gov- 
ernor and council, a right, and as hy conquest, to sell the 
lands as far west as Mattinicock. The peninsula is within 
the limits of the town of Easthampton ; the whites, the ap- 
pellation generally in use with us, when inteiiding to dis- 
tinguish between ourselves and the Indians, exercising only 
a modified right of property, the right of pasturage : the 
remnant of Indians still there enjoying the exclusive right 
of culture. The tribe was known as the Mattowas, or Mat- 
towahs, or Mattouwax, all of which, however differently 
spelt or pronounced by the whites, doubtless purport the 
same name ; but whether the tribe took their name from 
the place, or the place took its name from the tribe, is a 
question from which it behooves me to refrain. As of 







BENSON S MEMOIR. 



Dutch descent, I ought ever to have before me the warning 
from the '■'' mighty contests" in the parent comitry of my 
family, on the question whether the hook catches the fish, 
or the fish the hook? and the parties accordingly distin- 
guished as the HoECKs, and the Cabeljaus, the Hook and 
the Cod. 

The immediate neighbors to this tribe were the Shinni- 
cocks, who, and also at an early period, presented a sa- 
chem elect to the Governor for his approbation ; a solitary 
instance. At a treaty with the Oneidas, at Fort Schuyler, 
in 1788, they presented to the commissioners a lad, made a 
sachem the day before, and S/conondo, a respectable indi- 
vidual among them, as the guardian during his minority. 
The intent of the one ceremonial, the making a sachem, 
as furnishing an occasion for the other, the announcing it, 
feeing understood, the keg of rum, the expected compliment 
in return, was not Mdthheld. 

From the mere suggestion by the Montauck Indians of a 
claim, by conquest, to the vdiole of the territory between 
their home and JMaltinicock, we are led to suppose they 
were numerous and powerful, the natural consequence a 
pre-eminence, and thereby their name in time becoming the 
general or national name for the Indians throughout the 
whole island. It was usual with the Dutch to speak of the 
Maqtjaas, and the English afterward by the name, as pro- 
nounced by them, the Mohocks, intending at the same time 
the whole confederacy. Our historian expresses himself, in 
the text, '* all the Indians on Long Island were in subjection 
to the Five Nations, and acknowledged it by the payment 
of an annual tribute," and concludes a note on the passage, 
that the tribute still continued to be paid to the Mohocks. 
Indeed it is well known, that Mohock wsls the standing bug- 
hear with the matron-squaws on the island, to frighten their 
unquiet children, when losing their patience with them. 

Nayack — The name of a place at the Narrows on the 
Long Island side: In the grant to Cortelyau, 1G71, the land 
is described " as to begin at the point of Nayack, and to 
stretch along the bay," and hence NicoMs, who commanded 
the armament sent against the Dutch here, dates his sum- 
mons of surrender to the town, '' on board his Majesty's 
ship the Guyney, riding before Nayack." The lands, the 
v.'estern bank of the river for a few miles northward Irom 
the Tappan meadows, known by the same name, Nayack. 
The bay, between the geele, yellow, and the roode, red, Hook, 
still retains its Indian name, Gawanus. 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 



INDIAN NAMES OF PLACES— INLAND. 

Our islimd o^ 3Ianhattan, or as pronounced by the Dutchy 
and spelt by the whites of New England, and both prefix- 
ing the article the, Manliadoes ; ^ and the like observed by 
Stuyvesant in his answer to the summons to surrender, "^/ie 
Manhattans," and, in the articles of capitulation, signed at 
the governor's Bouwerie, Farm, still in the family, the road 
or lane leading to it, known as the Bouweriebche Laening, 
corrupted to Bowery-Lane, now Boiveri/- Street, the town and 
the inhabitants are mentioned as the " town of IManhat- 
tans,"'"the town of ^/ie Manhattoes," "the townsmen of the 
Manhattans." 

A marsh or swamp extended across the island, from be- 
tween where Canal street terminates at the North river 
and the space of the shore of the East river, the portion of 
Cherry-street between James and Catharine-streets. Cherry- 
street, so called from being laid through a public garden, 
with a bowling-green in it, called Cherry Garden, having a 
front on the East river of 384 feet, and extending in the 
rear to the meadow of Wolvert Webbers, the property of 
Richard Sacket, Malster ; the w^estern side of his malthouse 
the line of the eastern side of Roosevelt-street there. 
James-street, called after Jacobus, James, Roosevelt, and 
Catharine-street, after Catharine, the wife of Hendrick Rut- 
gers, proprietors, at the time, of the grounds, through which 
they were laid. There was a large pond or Kolck in the 
marsh about midway bet ween Broadway and Chatham-street, 
and a stream, or " rivulet," from it, running eastward, and 
crossing Chatham-street,between Pearl and Roosevelt-streets, 
and there a bridge over it. The English pronounced the 
word KoLCK, as if consisting of two syllables, Kol-lick, and 
the waters from the adjacent high grounds collecting in it, 
an etymologist, not long since, chose to imagine the true 
original name to have been an English one, Collect; and, 
the pond having lately been filled up, thence the name of a 
street passing over the space it occupied, Co//ec^street. 
The pond, besides being referred to very generally as em- 
phatically the KoLCK, w^as distinguished by the appellation 
of the Versche Water, Fresh Water, and which was also 
at times applied to the stream. A part of the description 
of a piece of land, in an ancient conveyance, is " being be- 
yond the Fresh Water," and then farther denoted by its 

* See Note IV. 






» BENSON S MEMOIR. 

Indian name, Warpoes. Also a piece of land on the north 
side of the island Manhattans, called by the Indians Mus- 
coote. The Indian name for the grounds now known as 
Greenwich, the name given to the place by Captain, after- 
wards Sir Peter, Wan-en, when on the station here, and 
purchasing them, was Sapokanikan, and, in like manner, as 
Manhadoes, retained in use by the Dutch, and spoken of as 
a distinct place, so that the skippers when, in coming down 
the river, they had turned Sopokanihan Point, would express 
themselves, "they were in sight of Manhadoes.'" The Indian 
name for the extreme southern point of the island, to be 
considered as the point on the shore dividing between the 
waters of the two rivers, was Kap-se ; and also in familiar 
use with the skippers when intending to mention, with some 
precision, the time at which they passed from the one river 
into the other. From those of the above circumstances 
having relation to Indian names, and perhaps the passage 
from De Laet, to be instantly cited, also considered, may 
not the conjecture be hazarded, that Manhattans, or Man- 
hadoes, was the name of a tribe of Indians, and the penin- 
sula, on the hither side of the Fresh Water, their exclusive 
or separate place of abode ? 

Our River — "The great river of New Netherland," says 
De Laet, "is by some called Manhaties, after the nation of 
Indians who dwell near, or at, the beginning or mouth of 
it." This is no otherwise giving the name of the river, 
than by referring to the name of the tribe of Indians at its 
mouth. 

The Sieur Des Monts led a colony from France, in 1004. 
He entered the Bay of Fundy, thence thereafter at times 
known as French Bay ; visited a harbor which he called 
Po7't Royal, now Annapolis ; and afterwards making the 
circuit of the bay, and returning along the western shore, 
came to a river the 24th June, and it being the festival of 
the Baptist, gave it the name of St. John. Sailing farther 
westward, he entered the bay of Passamaquoddy, and 
landed on an island, in a river emptying into the bay, to 
which he gave the name of St. Croix. There will be a 
reference in the sequel to the history of these colonists, as 
furnished by L'Escarbot, who was there two years there- 
after ; it will be here only further mentioned, that of the 
whole number, seventy-nine persons, thirty-five died during 
the winter, of the scurvy, spoken of as a disease not known 
before, and, as it would seem, attributed to the extreme 
coldness of the climate. " From April to the middle of De- 



ri'.x.son's memoir. 9 

cember," says Champlain, in Dc Lact, "llio air ol" Canada 
is healthy, but January, February, and March, arc unhealthy, 
and you arv. then severely alllicted with the scurvy." lie 
came out with Des Monts as his i^^eoj^^rapher, and went al- 
t(u-vvards to Canada, and probably the lirst who explored 
th(>. lake still bearing- his name, hi the account of the voy- 
age, as taken from his own publication of it, spc-aking of 
the river in the bay of Passamaquoddy, he calls it the river 
of the Etchemins ; in like manner with De Lact, designa- 
ting it by referring to the name of the tiibe of Indians in- 
hai)iting'^its banks, it having, but of whieh he was not in- 
formed at th(! time, an Indian name, the Scudiac. The In- 
dian name ol" our river is S/ia-te-muc. Here, however, not 
having general tradition, or written document, to warrant 
me, it is proper 1 should state, and so submit, my authority. 
In ]785, I met with a person of the name of Ilouw; his 
parents were of the German families, who came over in 
1710, under the protection and at the expense of Queen 
Anne, and settled on a tract of six thousand acres, within 
the limits of the Manor of Livingston, heretofore; known as 
the German iUwip, now Ge,rm(in Toiim, purchased for them, 
it being intended they should raise hemp, and, the pine then 
abounding in the vicinity, make tar, for the use of the 
navy. In the conversation with him, he told me his lather, 
at a very early day, parted with his farm in the camp, and 
took a lease for one, from the proprietor of the Manor, at a 
place called by the Indians Stissinck, about tw(dve miles 
from the river; that the family were, as it respected white 
neighbors, for a long time almost solitary; that tlieir chief 
intercourse was with the Indians, who were still numerous 
there ; that the Indian boys were his play-fellows, so that 
as he grew up, the Indian became as familiar to him as the 
German, the language of the family. Among other inquir- 
ies, I asked him if he knew the Indian name of the river ? 
He replied he did, it was Ska-te-muc. With a view to as- 
certain whether he was not repeating only individual hear- 
say, I asked him how he came by the knowledge of the 
name? He replied, it was always called so by the Indians; 
that when going to, or coming from the river, they would 
say they were going to, or had come from, Slia-le-muc ; in 
short, that he had come to the knowhulge of the Indian 
name for it, in the same manner he had come to the 
knowledge of the name by which it was known by the 
whites, the North River. 1 then mentioned, that possibly 
it was the name for a portion of it, a reach in it there ; he 
2 



10 Benson's memoir. 

replied, it was usual with him, when a j'oung man, and the 
deer scarce in the Tachhanick mountains in the neighbor- 
hood, to go and hunt with the Wiccapce Indians in the 
Highlands, and the river was known to them by the same 
name. I was a stranger to him personally ; but when I re- 
sided at Red-Hook, in Dutchess county, at a previous pe- 
riod, I knew several of the family, and they were respect- 
able ; his recollection and judgment were entire, his ap- 
pearance decent, and his deportment proper. I might have 
saved myself the necessity of the surmise to him, that pos- 
sibly it was only the name of a portion of the river, had it 
occurred to me, that the Indians, using the same language, 
have the same name for a river throughout its whole length. 
An Indian meeting a white man on the confines of Canada, 
asked him where he came from '? He told him from Con- 
necticut river ; the Indian instantly extending his arms lat- 
erally from him to the utmost stretch, as the expressive 
gesture, repeated the name Connecticoota, adding its mean- 
ing, Long River. 

Croton River — supposed to be the mis-spelling of the 
name of an Indian, probably the proprietor of the lands at 
the mouth of it, as we find it, in very early documents, in 
the genitive, Croton's River. In an Indian deed, 1685, the 
river is called Kitchawan, and the lands adjacent to it on 
the south, Sincksinck. 

Schenectady — A tract within the limits of the Colonie 
or JuRisDicTiE of Rensselaerwyck, extending from the river 
in a northwestern direction, a mile in breadth, was formed 
by the Dutch Government into a separate Jurisdiction, 
known as the Jurisdiction of Schenectady, the name of the 
Five Nations for the site of the only settlement, at the 
time, within it, the Dorp or village of Beverwyck, on the 
bank of the river, and its meaning, on the further side of the 
pine wood, denoting its situation relatively to them. The 
license from Stuyvesant to Van Curler and his associates, 
to purchase the lands, described in it, as " the well known 
Flatt lying behind the Fort Orange, landward in," is dated 
in 1 60 1 . The term Flatt has obtained among us a translation 
of the Dutch Vlachte, when used to denote lands on a river 
,by alluvion. This Flatt was, at the time, distinguished by 
the Dutch as the Groote, or Great, Vlachte. The Indian 
name for it, Oronowaragouhre. It was instantly settled by 
the whites, and their village considered as within the Juris- 
diction of Schenectady. Nicolls, veiy shortly after the sur- 
render of the colony, erected tlie jurisdiction into a city. 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 



11 



giving it the name of Albany, after the Scotch title of the 
Duke of York, but restricting its western extent to sixteen 
miles from the river ; the residue, however, and especially 
as it regarded the settlement at the Great Flatt, which 
would otherwise, if it may be so expressed, have become 
extra-parochial, was considered as still subsisting as a Ju- 
risdiction, and no new one being assigned to it, the name of 
Schenectadi/ of course continued to be used, and the Sellout 
or ShRriJf as still in office ; and at the moment happening 
to reside there, we accordingly find the following entry in 
the minutes of the Council, 15th October, J 675, "Sanders 
Leenderts Glen, and Ludovicus Cobez, Schout of Schenec- 
tady, appeared with a request from their village for a pa- 
tent. Ordered, that they have a patent for the land about 
and above Schenectad}'. The Bowerys, or Farms, at Sche- 
nectady, are to pay for each of them, containing twenty 
morgan, and in proportion, four bushels of wheat, as a quit- 
rent. The magistrates of Schenectady to have liberty to 
impose a levy ;" and thus the name was transferred from 
the Schenectady of the Five Nations to their Oy-onowara- 
goulire. 

Nachte7iack-— The Indian name for the point of land, the 
site of the village of Waterford, and sold at an eaily day, 
and the grantees denoted in the deed, by the names of Co- 
zen Gerritse, and Philip Peterse, the last syllable, se, an 
abbreviation of sent, varied from zoon, son, the Christian 
name of the father of the one being Gerrit, and of the 
other Peter, and their surnames Van Schaick and Van 
Schuyler. Taking this species of Patronymic, and using it 
as a surname, a practice our Dutch ancestors brought over 
with them, and it has now in some families become the 
permanent surname : Instances — the Myndertses, the de- 
scendants of Myndert Van Everen ; the Leffertses, of Lef- 
FERT Van Haagevvjdut ; the Martenses, of Martin Schenck ; 
the RiKERTSES, abbreviated to RuvEr, of Rucert Lent ; the 
Remsens, of Rembrandt, abbreviated to Reai, Van Der Beek. 
With some, the English son, as being of the same import, 
has been substituted for the Dutch sen : Instances — the 
Johnsons of Kings and Ulster counties; the Gerritsons;' 
the Evertsons ; the Bensons. With a number of our Dutch 
families, the preposition Van, of, as a part of the surname, 
has gone into disuse : Instances — the Van Ten Broecks, the 
Van Gansevoorts, the Van Varicks, the Van Kouvvenhovens, 
and in the family of Pnn.ip Peterse Van Schuyler, already 
named, the use of it probably ceasing with him, as it does 



12 Benson's memoir. 

not appear to have been used even by his son Major Peter 
Schuyler, " distinguished," says our historian, " for his sin- 
gular bravery and activity in the defence of his country. 
In the summer of lG91,he, with a party of Mohocks, passed 
through the Lake Champlain, and made an irruption on the 
French settlements at the north end of it. De Callieres, 
the Governor of Montreal, to oppose him, collected a small 
army of eight hundred men, and encamped at La Prairie. 
Schuyler had several conflicts with the enemy, and slew 
about three hundred of them, which exceeded in number 
his whole party : he succeeded to the influence and honors 
of Van Curler. Whatever he recommended or disapproved, 
had the force of a law with the Five Nations ; and they 
afterwards addressed the governor of the colony by the 
title of GoRAii QuiDER, instead of Peter, which they could 
not pronounce, Governor Peter." The vick-mvne formerly 
much in use with the Dutch here : Instances — the residence 
of Jan Roodhaer, a little freely translated Foxy-head John, 
referred to in a grant, his name, though somewhat angli- 
cised in spelling, Van Salisbury ; a grant to Jacob Flodder, 
Jacob Rafter, his occupation on the river, his name Gardi- 
NiER. Vader Kees, Father Cornelius, the plaintiflMn a suit, 
his name Jansen. A few families, descended from clergy- 
men, still using the surname as Latinised by their classical 
progenitors : Instances — Goetius, Polhemius, Curtenius, 
Mancius, Borgardus. 

Our names for the Five Nations, are not their names in 
their own language ; they are the names by which the In- 
dians inhabiting the banks of the river, the Mohegans, or, 
as pronounced by the Dutch, Mahikanders, denote them, 
and being those first communicated to the whites, they have 
retained them in use : their names, in their own language, 
are, the Mohocks, Te-ka-te-righ-te-^o-ne, Council of two 
Bands, alluding to the two clans or castles of them, the one 
at Fort t[unter, so called after Governor Hunter, the other 
at Fort Hendrick, so called after their distinguished chief, 
usually known as King Hendrick, who fell in the battle at 
Lake George, 1755; the Oneida s, Ni-ho-ron-ta-^o-wa, a 
great tree; the Onondagas, Ro-tigh-re-a-na-^/^A-ta, ca^ryfw^ 
their houses on their hacks; the Cayugas, Sho-ti-non-no- 
wen-te iree-ne, the great pipe; and the Senecas, Ya-te-ho- 
ni-non-hagh-//on-te, the people at the end of the house. A 
peculiarity to be noticed in these names, dwelling on the 
pemdtitnate syllable : A few farther instances — names of 
places — Mo-non-ga-//e-la, Wa-ma-na-i:)a-(/2itt-sick, Ca-nes-ti- 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 13 

gi-M-ne. Names of persons — An-na-ta-A«?^-les, a taker of 
towns ; the name of the Five Nations for General Wash- 
ington : Ta-ha-ne-ye-a-ta-/i:a?^-ye, ancient his legs ; their 
name for General Schuyler— I have placed thee, my friend, 
by the side of him who knew thee, thy intelligence to dis- 
cern, thy zeal to promote, thy country's good, and, knowing 
thee, prized thee. Let this be thy eulogy. I add, and with 
truth, peculiarly thine. Content, it should be mine to have 
expressed it. There will be a farther occasional mention of 
Indian names in the sequel. 

SPANISH NAMES OF PLACES. 

The Spaniards were the first Europeans who gave names 
. to places on our coast. There were upwards of thirty in 
number, between Cape Florida and Cape Cod. Florida 
itself, and St. Augustine, St. Lucia, Caneveral, St. Juan, 
Matanzas, and Roman, or more properly Romana, only are 
found on the charts of the present day. A few of the oth- 
ers will be noticed. A Cape is laid down as in latitude 36, 
with the name of Trafalgar, and was subsequentl}^ further 
denoted by the Dutch as the southern point of Virginia on 
the ocean. They named the Chesapeake, the Bay of the 
Mother of God, the Delaware, the Bay of all Saints, and the 
Hudson, the River of the Mountains. 

Who the Spanish voyagers were, and whether the same 
who gave the name of Campo Bello to an island in the Bay 
of Fundy, or of Tremont to the Peninsula of Boston, from 
the three eminences in it, cannot now be ascertained, at least 
not without more research than the success of it would 
recompense. There is no trace of their having landed in 
our vicinity. Indeed, according to Van Der Donck, it is 
scarcely to be believed their ships were even in sight from 
the shore. "This country," he says, " was first found and 
discovered by the Dutch, in 1609, when a ship, the Half 
Moon, was fitted out by the East India Company, to seek 
westward for a passage through to China. Henry Hudson 
was the master and supercargo ; an Englishman by birth, 
but who had long abode among the Netherlanders, and 
then in the service and pay of the East India Company. 
That it was first discovered by the Netherlanders is evident 
from this, that the Indians, or Natives, of whom there are 
many still living, and so old as to remember it, declare, that 
before the arrival of the ship Half Moon, they did not 
know there were any other people in the world so unlike 

SECOND SERIES, VOL. H. 7 



14 BENSON S MEMOIR. 

them as being more liairy, much less so far otherwise dif- 
fering from them in kind and fashion, as our nation. There 
are some who maintain that the Spaniards were in this 
country many years before, but, finding it too cold, left it ; 
but I could never understand so from the Indians." 

Notwithstanding what Van Der Donck here relates, I 
cannot forbear from the conjecture that they approached 
so near as distinctly to discern the opening, the Narrows, 
and concluding it to be the entrance into a river, and Neve- 
sinck and Staten Island being the only land on the coast 
apparently mountainoits, thence the name the River of the 
Mountains; for although I give the passage entire from 
him, I am not therefore to be understood as giving it un- 
qualified credit. He was a Dutchman, and doubtless penned 
the passage, in asseveration of their title to the river as the 
first discoverers of it ; and it does not require an attendance 
of a whole half century on courts of justice to learn, that 
where interest, or wish, or not less ill than good-will, or 
even only the vanity of narrating, to show we know some- 
thing not known to others, or the absence of heed, or any 
other of the varieties of human frailty, there how sparing 
of belief 

To a point now known as Sandy or Monemy Point, a 
point on the hither shore of the peninsula of Cape Cod, 
they gave the name of Cape Mallebarre. The Dutch called 
it Ongelukige Haven, Unlucky Harbor, probably intended 
as a translation of the Spanish name. The name Malle- 
barre had ceased to be known until the hearing before the 
commissioners in 1798, to determine the River St. Croix, 
intended in the treaty of peace which closed the war of the 
Revolution, when L'Escarbot being read in proof, and he 
mentioning it, the knowledge of it Avas revived, and it has 
since found its place on the charts of the coast of Massa- 
chusetts. 

It will be recollected, that we have spoken of the voyage 
of Sieur des Monts in an attempt to plant a colony, of his 
landing on the island of St. Croix, and the loss of a number 
of his followers by death during the winter : the history of 
the survivors is briefly related in the following extract from 
L'Escarbot, and to which we have alluded. " The season 
being passed, the Sieur Des Monts, tired of his sorrowful 
abode at St. Croix, determined to search for another port 
in a country more w^arm and more to the south ; and hav- 
ing seen the coast of Mallebarre, and with much labor, 
and not finding what he desired, he determined to go to 



Benson's memoir. 15 

Perl Royal, to make his stay there, and wait until he should 
have the means to make a more ample discovery." The 
French permitted to come as far as Mallebarre,* and then, 
instead of landing to abide there, or pursuing their voyage 
farther, they are to discern it as more eligible to return 
to Port Royal. What a Providence ! Continuing their 
course westward a few leagues farther, would have dis- 
covered to them the Bay of Nassau of the Dutch, with 
the Garden Island, the Aqidday of the Indians, the Rhode 
Island of the English, in its bosom, its western coast 
the country of the Narragansetts, the Land of Pasturage, 
the Land of Milk. What might not have been now the 
condition of these our happy regions, " if we knew it," 
had they been peopled by French instead of English col- 
onists ! Our free forms of government ; next to the reve- 
lation of himself, the best gift from the Deity to man 
during his stay here ! W^hen the present Constitutionf was 
vouchsafed us, the Representatives of the nation, pecu- 
liarly so denominated, in their Address, to the Most be- 
loved Citizen. What an appellation ! With what hearts 
bestowed ! in answer to his speech to the Congress, at the 
opening of the session, avowed ^'the resjjonsibility on us for 
the destiny of Republican Liberty." We selected and re- 
served on whom the ultimate hope for Man, whether capa- 
ble of a free government, a government elective through- 
out, a self-government, a government, the administrations 
of it, for their rectitude, and otherwise for their wisdom, 
depending on his own volitions, his own prudence, the lat- 
ter taken as implying " the constant presence of Deity with 
us," is to rest ! Should we succeed to fulfil it, and would it 
were not possible we should not, what of national reproach 
must we not in the course of the probation, have escaped, 
what of national exaltation shall we not have obtained ! 

DUTCH NAMES OF PLACES. 

The Dutch called the Delaware the South, and the Hud- 
son the North, river, from their relative situation to each 
other. They appear also to have been known by two other 
names, to be considered perhaps as their legal names. Prince 
Maurits's, and Prince Hendrick's, rivers, after two Princes 
of the House of Orange. The name of Maurits has since 
become appropriated to a small river issuing into Delaware 
Bay on the eastern side. They used the word Kill in two 

* See Note V. t See Note VI. 



16 Benson's memoir. 

senses ; in one, as the same with the English word Creek, 
an arm of the sea or of a river ; the other as importing a 
Sti'eam. Mespat Kill, originally Indian, but retained in 
use by the Dutch, Newtoion creek ; Maquaas Kill, Mohock 
river. The Schuylkill still retaining its Dutch name, the 
translation hiding creek, perhaps more strictly sculking 
creek ; schuyl te iiouwden, when applied to debtor, the same 
meaning with Latitat in the process. The Brandywine 
river and banks retain their Dutch name. Boompties Hoeck, 
tree point, corrupted to Bomhay Hook. Whore Kill and 
Reedy Island, literal translations of their Dutch names. 
The southern cape, Hinlopen, its Dutch name, a common 
surname ; a Francis Hinlopen laid the first stone of a pub- 
lic weigh-house in Amsterdam, 1GG8. The northern cape 
May, Mey, also known as Cape Cornelius, named after 
Skipper Cornelius Jacobse Mey. The first inlet without 
the cape on the New Jersey shore, the Beere Gat, the Bear 
Gut. The word Gat, when used in a nautical sense, the 
corresponding word in Dutch with Gut in English when 
used in the same sense. The channel between the buoys 
leading into the Texel, is called the Gat. The passage be- 
tween the island of Goeree and the Main on their coast 
the Gat of Goeree. The English speak of the Gut of Gib- 
raltar, the Gut of Canso ; and every inlet from the sea, 
through the beach into the bay on the southern shore of 
Long Island, is spoken of as a Gut. Van Der Donck ex- 
presses himself, " besides fine bays and rivers, there are also 
convenient Gaten to those who are acquainted with them, but 
at present not navigated, especially the Beere Gat." Great 
and little Egg Harbors, translations of their Dutch names. 
Barne Gat retaining its Dutch name, an abbreviation of 
Brandende Gat, the Breaker Gut. The Dutch lexicogra- 
phers have interpreted Brandende, when importing a b?'eak- 
ing of the sea, into Latin, by fervor maris ; but Brandende 
also importing burning, and Gat Hole, we find the inlet laid 
down in the English chart heretofore referred to, by the 
name of burning hole. Sandy Hook ; the Dutch generally call- 
ed it the Sandt Punt, and it is also mentioned as the Sandt 
Hoeck, and for some time called by the English Sandy Poi?it. 
The island under the Long Island shore, to be considered as 
the northeastern chop of the entrance from the sea, Beeren 
Island, Bear Island, but the soil being of the kind denominated 
by us Beach, barren, hence corrupted to Barren Island. To 
an island immediately westward of it they gave the name 
of Conyn's Island ; Coney Island ; Conyn, a Dutch surname 



Benson's memoir. *■' 

still rcmainin- among us; from the name Coney, tliere ai;e 
already symptoms ot the beginning of a tradition that it 
once abounded in Rabbits. The Narro^os they ca led the 
IIooFDEN, their name for the forelands on the British coast, 
literally head lands. The names of the tovvns in the vicinity, 
Utretcuit, Breuckelen, corrupted to Brookhne, and Amfrs- 
FORT, changed to F/atlands, denote the district in the ^at/m 
Land, furnishing the first settlers. Gravesend settled, and 
in Dutch time and under a Dutch grant by sonie families 
immediately from England-a Lady Del^orah Moody, the 
Dido, leading the colony. Flatbush ; a corruption, and may 
also serve as a translation, of its Dutch name, \ lacmte-bos 
—its primitive Dutch name, Midwout, Midwood—why or 
Avhence changed, does not appear. A conjecture is ottered, 
that Brelckelen and Amersfort were, from their proximity 
to the waters, earliest settled, and a space intermediate 
and about equidistant between them remamed as Wout or 
Bos, Wood, and denoted as the Midwout, and the bos on 
the Plain or Vlachte, the site of the present village ot 
Flatbush, as to be distinguished from Bos or Wood, on the 
contiguous Gererghle, or Ridge, came to be designated as 
the Vlachte-Bos. Rustdorp, the Dutch name for Jamaica, 
say countrytown. Coe and his associates, in their applica- 
tion, 1656, to Stuyvesant, for the lands there, represent 
themselves as "living at a new plantation, near the Beaver 
path, called /em«ico"— hence the subsequent Jamaica. W e 
tind the Dutch Vlissengen, in the English Flushing ; and 
the Armen Bouerey, the Farm, purchased by the Deaconry 
of New York for the use of the Poor, in an intended trans- 
lation of it, the Poor Bowery. The Dutch called the Bay 
bounded on the south by the ocean, on the easi; by Long- 
Island, on the north partly by the mouth of the Hudson and 
partly by the shore of New Jersey, and on the west wholly 
by the shore of New Jersey, and Staten Island considered 
as lyino- within it, The Great Bay of New Netherland, and 
so called, as Van Der Dbnck expresses it, - propter Excel- 
lentiam:'' emment\y the Bay. Newark Bay, from its rela- 
tive situation to the Great Bay, they called Hm- achter Cue 
literally the Back Bay ; Cul. borrowed from the French Cm/ 
de sac, and also in use with the Dutch to signiiy a bay. 
Achter Cul, found in very early writings, in English relernng 
toit, corrupted to Arthur Curs Bay : the passage from it into 
the Great Bay they called Het Kill van het Lvi^i., the Kill 
of the Cul, finally come to be expressed' by the Kills. A 
reef in the Bay, not far from the mouth of the Kills, Robyns 



18 bexson's memoir. 

RIFT, seal reef ; the seal heretofore frequently taken in the 
Bay, and Robyn, a name with the Dutch for it. The name 
of the reef corrupted to Rohhins Reef. The Strait between 
the Bay and the Sound, the latter also occasionally distin- 
guished by them as the Great Bay, they denoted from its 
relative situation to the other two rivers, as the East river ; 
the island at the entrance of it they called Nooten Island, 
corrupted to Nut Island, corrupted to Nutten Island, the 
name by which it was known till within the last fifty years, 
when it began at times to be spoken of, or referred to, as 
the Governor s Island, it having, from the beginning, been 
reserved for the use of the Governor, and hence its present 
name exclusively, Governor s Island. Long Island retains 
its Dutch name translated ; and a legal name was assigned 
to it by an act of Assembly, 1G93, the Island of Nassau. 
Staaten Island retains its name with a slight variance in 
the spelling, Slaten Island ; an island of the same name on 
the coast of the district of Maine. 

Among the first who came over, not improbable the very 
first as husbandmen, M^ere some families of Walloons. A 
child born in 1625, named Sarah, the parents, Walloons, of 
the name of D'Rapalje. The blessing of the relations of 
Rebecca seems to have rested on her ; the mother of thou- 
sands, at least, in succession from her, in King's county. 
A tradition in the family that she was the first ichite bom 
here, and that, induced by the circumstance, the [ndians 
gave to D'Rapalje and his brethren, like the other French 
who followed them in the same century, forsaking their 
country not to forsake the tr7ith, the lands adjacent to the 
bay, hence named Het Waale Boght, the Walloon Bay, cor- 
rupted to the Wallabout Bay. Besides D'Rapalje, the names 
of Le Escuyer, Duryee, La Sillier, Cershou, Conseiller, Mus- 
serol, and others, still to be found there, or in the vicinity. 
Extract from the Journal of tie Dutch Council, 165G: — 

" Sarah Jorison, the first born Christian daughter in New 
Netherland, widow of Hans Hansen, burdened with seven 
children, petitions for a grant of a piece of meadow, in 
addition to the tw^enty morgen granted to her at the Waale 
Boght." The settlement also denoted, at times, as Mark- 
WYCK, Market-ivyck, and the adjacent Tract, then still a 
M^ood, as BosvvvcK, tolerably translated by Bushwyck. The 
Dutch Wyck is still to be traced in the English Greenwich, 
Ipswich; when applied to a city, the Dutch used it as a 
substitute for the Enghsh Ward. 

To digress for a moment — 



Benson's memoir. 19 

Winter wheat to be taken in payment at five shillings, 
and summer wheat at four shillings and sixpence, per 
bushel— 1675. 

Wampum — six white to pass for a stuiver, or penny, and 
three black at the same rate — 1672. 

Bond for 1600 guilders in Wampum — 1672. 

Mexico plate to pass at the rate of six shillings, and Peru 
at the rate o^ five shillings, per eighteen penny-weight — 
1675. 

£110 in pieces of eight at six shillings, New England 
money, each, the consideration for a lot — 1668. 

A grant for a tobacco plantation at the Waale Boght — 
1643. 

20 Guilders in Wampum equal only to 10 Guilders in 
Holland money. 

A ship arrived in Holland from New Netherland, laden 
with tobacco and some peltry — 1661. 

A conveyance for a farm at Mespat Kill, with the habi- 
tation and the tobacco house — 1665. 

750 guilders in tobacco, the consideration in a conveyance 
for a lot ; 932 pounds weight of tobacco raised on a farm ; 
and an action for 400 pounds weight of tobacco and 2 Stui- 
VERs— 1667. 

2100 pounds weight of tobacco, the consideration for half 
of a farm on the Delaware ; and a mortgage of half a crop 
of tobacco on the ground ; and, at the same period, more 
acres of peas than of luJieat returned in the inventories of 
estates of persons deceased, and hence the apparently high 
price of grain ; Madeira wine one shilling and ten pence a 
quart, and rum two shillings and four pence a gallon — 
1675. 

Total of the assessed value of estates in the city, 1668, 
£78,231, and a tax of a penny half-penny in a pound to be 
levied on it ; the total of the value, 1815, f 81,636,512. 

To return to our subject — 

The name of the point opposite to the Waale Boght, one 
of the chops of our harbor, Curler's Hook, and still retain- 
ing it, and so called after Arent Van Curler, the same 
already mentioned as the predecessor of Schuyler in influ- 
ence and honor with the Five Nations. He purchased the 
farm or plantation there in 1652, and as denoted by its In- 
dian name, Nechiank, and afterwards removed to Albany, 
and was drowned in Lake Champlain, and hence the Dutch 
thereafter called it Curler's Lake. " It is in honor of this 
man, who was a favorite of the Indians," says our histo- 



-^0 BENSON'S MEMOIR. 

rian, " that the governors of New York, in all their treaties, 
were addressed by the name of Curler,^' or, as generally 
spelt, Co7-/ear. His widow took out administration of his 
estate by her name before marriage, Juffrouw, Madam, 
Antonio Slaghboom, always the privilege* of the Dutch 
wife to resume it at pleasure, to show her descent. Pride ! 
vanity ! granted. Sir •' valor and contemplation," and — what 
then ? 

. A point, in the narrow part of the lake, they called the 
Kruine Punt, corrupted to, and which may also pass for a 
translation of it. Crown Point ; the word crown understood 
as intending the crown of the head; more properly how- 
ever. Scalp, or Scalping Point. The historian speaks of it 
''asthe place whence the French sent out their scalping 
parties. The French called it Fort Frederick. To Ticon- 
deroga, the Indian Meeting of Waters, they gave a name 
apparently singular, Carillon, a chime of hells. To Lake 
George, a name importing, the Lake of the Holy Sacrament, 
The Dutch name for a small bay or cove, on the East 
river, about two miles above Curler's Hook, Deutel Bay, 
corrupted to Turtle Bay. When the head of the cask was 
further secured with pegs, they would say the cask was 
GEDEUTELT ; the pcgs Were short, but at the base broad ; 
the bay narrow at its entrance, broad at the bottom ; the 
supposed resemblance between the bay and the peg, the 
supposed origin of the name. The Point, about the same 
distance farther, they called Hooen's Hoeck, Horn's Point ; 
there is a point in the Thames of the same name, but pro- 
nounced there in plainer English, "the word unpleasing to 
the married ear." 

THE ISLANDS IN THE RIVER. 

The Dutch name of the first, Varken, Hog Island, its le- 
gal English name Manning'' s Island, so called after the pro- 
prietor of it once, the unfortunate Captain John Manning, 
"whose sword M^as afterwards broken over his head in 
public, before the City Hall, for treacherously delivering up 
the garrison to the Dutch, 28th .luly, 1673." 'J'he next two 
islands, Groote, and Kleyne, Barent's Islands, corrupted i& 
Great and Little Barn Islands. Barent, a Dutch Christian 
name. Barent Janse, overseer of the island under the West 
India Company. Little Parens' Island, granted to DelavaU 
1GG9; a piece of meadow released to him on the north 
side of Barent'' s Isle ; a piece released to him on the south 

* See Note VII. 



i.i'.iN HON S MEMOIR. 'Zl 

side of little Barent's Island. The tract between Harlem river 
and the large stream next eastward, Bronck's Land. Jonas 
Broxck, the first proprietor of it : — the passage between it 
and Little Barn Island, called Bronck's river, and the stream 
also, as the lands on its banks became settled, afterwards 
denoted by, and still retaining, the same name. The Dutch 
name for Westchester, Oostborp, Eastern, and a district 
adjacent to it, not now to be defined. Vreedlandt, Peace 
Land. The islands, the Gesellen, their Dutch name trans- 
lated, the Brothers. The passage between Long Island and 
Great Barn Island, the Dutch called Het Helle Gat, cor- 
rupted to Hell-Gate, and finally to Hurl-Gate. I have 
shown what Gat imports in Dutch, when used as in the 
present instance, so that PIellecat may be interpreted either 
Hellgut, or the Gut of Hell. De Laet, in his Latin work, 
has it Inferi os. When a ferry was, within a few years 
since, about to be established from Hoorn's Hoeck to Long 
Island, and a dock being necessary for a landing or stairs, 
the persons employed to build it, having finished it, a duty 
of humanity still remained, the traveller was to he directed in 
the right way ; they accordingly put up a hand or guide 
board, where the road turns off from the main road, with 
the direction coarsely painted on it, no matter how coarsely, 
it was plain enough for all to read it, " The road to Hurlgate 
Ferry," and this the origin of the name Hurlgate. That 
they should be offended at the first syllable in the name 
HellgSbte, may perhaps be accounted for : they may have 
considered the use of it, unless in open reprehension of 
themselves, or in rebuke of others, as naughty, having been 
so trained in their youth ; or they may have been apprehen- 
sive, that being too familiar with the name, might tend to 
render the place too familiar, and so take off" from the dread 
of it ; but why they should adopt hurl as the substitute, 
cannot be conceived, inasmuch as a gate, so far from hurl- 
ing or hurrying us through, may, at times, perform to us 
one of the best offices of a friend, to stay or check us in our 
career of more haste than good speed. Perhaps the dock- 
builders never thought so far : and I am fearful, that how- 
ever inclined we may be to find a motive for them, we shall, 
after all, be obliged to say, that when they undertook to 
amend the name, they went beyond their dock. But the per- 
sons most to blame are the editors of our public papers. 
It will be acknowledged they have it in their power to give 
currency, limit it for the moment to names ; it ought, how- 
ever, to occur to them, that all power implies trust for the 



22 Benson's memoir. 

due exercise of it, and they speak as familiarly of going, 
and coming, through Hurlgate, as they do of going out of, 
and coming into, Sandy Hook. I pray, however, I may not 
be considered as taking it upon me to be their censor — far 
different from it ; for notwithstanding the earpings of some, 
who love to be ever finding fault, that, not unfrequently, 
their facts are not the fact, their reasonings not logic, their 
praise sickening, their dispraise, as to the manner of it, the 
reverse of good manners, their wit, omitting to remember 
" that mediocrity in wit was never permitted in any," their 
best excuse ; and notwithstanding the sneers of others, that 
at times they are so sententious, so sagacious, so profound, as 
to be wonderful, I say, and say it with sincerity, may they 
flourisii; iviihont newspapers numerous and free, we are ivithout 
Liberty; the growth even of weeds indicates soil and season ; 
I, however, prefer another illustration more courteous and not 
less apt — the richest harvest must have its straws to sustain 
it. The English Hellgate has been so long peaceably in pos- 
session, I am content it should remain so. I have no desire 
to go back either to Dutch language or Dutch law ; not to 
the one because not better than the English, nor to the 
other because not so good. The Dutch took the civil law of 
Rome ; there they erred ; they should have taken the common 
law of England — the trial by jury ! — How the law ? to be 
declared by the judge, hence ever to be a man of the law. 
How the fact? to be found by the unanimous verdict of a 
jury to be taken from the Laity of the place at large, to be 
kept together in private until agreed ; and, in the discretion 
of the judge, in the meantime to permit sustenance to be 
furnished them. How the inquiry ? in open court before 
the judge, by the oral testimony of the witnesses, the jury 
to notice their demeanor and appearance, and, if requisite, 
they to be confronted. How the evidence? under the con- 
trol of the judge as incident. How if the judge err ? an 
exception to be taken to his opinion, and the error exam- 
ined elsewhere. How if the jury mistake in their verdict? 
in the sound discretion of the judge to set it aside, and 
award a new trial. How if a juror happen to be returned 
not standing indifferent between the parties ? to be chal- 
longed, and the challenge to be instantly tried by triers, to 
be elected by the judge, and, where life in jeopardy, the 
accused privileged to challenge a due number peremptorily 
and no cause of challenge required — all this of human con- 
trivance ! 

" In the year one thousand six hundred and fourteen," 



Benson's memoir. 23 

says De Laet, " the ship of Skipper Adrian Block took fire 
by accident, and he built here a Yacht of thirty-eight feet 
keel, forty-four feet and a half on deck, and eleven feet and 
a half beam, with which he sailed through the Hellegat 
into the Great Bay, and visited all the places thereabout, 
and went in it as far as Cape Cod ;" and I shall intend him 
to have been the first who passed through the Gat, and that, 
wherever they were given, he gave the Dutch names to 
the places he visited. 

If he went through at about two-thirds flood, and either 
at the full or change, it must have appeared most terrific 
to him, and the name, the exclamation, might have escaped 
him. Still I think he is not wholly to be pardoned. As a 
Dutchman, it is to be presumed, he was very early in- 
structed in his catechism, and if he had attended to the 
proofs in the margin under the proper Sunday Section, he 
would have seen it was more to be likened to the way lead- 
ing to the good place, narrow, scarcely admitting two 
abreast, the Hog's hack and the Pot, the rock on the one 
hand, and the whirlpool on the other, 7?iind your helm, keep 
in the true tide, his incessant caution to his Stierman, 
\\'hereas the way leading to the other place, the bad place, 
is laid down as being hroad, as many at a time as choose, 
and you have nothing to do but to doum sail or lay upon 
your oars, as the case may be, and leave yourself to the 
current, and drive through. 

The Sunday Section ; the name by which sections are 
distinguished in the Dutch Original ; the name by which 
the day was known to the first converts from among the 
Gentiles, taught by the Apostles, they taught by the Divine 
TEACHER himself, and the use of it continued by them 
after their conversion, and from them to those who claimed, 
and rightfully, to be their followers, the reformers, includ- 
ing the Reverend Fathers, the Synod of Dort, all distinctly 
understanding the terjjis or names they used, and hence dis- 
tinctly understanding themsHves — Satisfied the seventh, the 
required, portion of time, a diurnal revolution of the sun, 
v^^as set apart, and the observance of the hitherto day 
ceasing, as alike typical with priesthood and altar, and so 
alike spent ; and the next day taken as the most obvious 
course, there being no reason for preferring another, they 
appear to have occupied themselves otherwise than in sur- 
mising and inquiring, whether it would not tend to a more 
devout observance of it, to substitute the name by which 
it was known by the Apostles among themselves, they be- 



24 BENSON S MEMOIR. 

ing Jews, the first day ; or the name by which it is men- 
tioned by an Apostle, referring to an occasion rendering it, 
in an eminent sense, the day of the Lord, " when his great 
voice w^as heard as of a trumpet, / am the first and the 
LAST," and the text accordingly to be viewed as preserved 
to us to intimate doctrine, not formally to prescribe name ; 
or the Jewish na??ie for the last day of the week, the Sab- 
bath, their day of i^est from work from sunset to sunset. In 
England they have schools on the day for the gratuitous 
instruction of the poor ; we have them now likewise ; 
there, having the merit to have led, they are called Sunday 
Schools ; with us, having the merit only, for although merit 
still no more than secondary, to have followed, they are in 
some places to be called Sabbath Schools. To impart sanc- 
tity by force of a name ! A singular conception ! The more 
singular, the intelligence of many, in whom apparently 
found, considered. But if noticed as in some, in respect to 
« day, must I not, if to stand equal with all, notice it as in 
others in respect to a Building. The Church of the most 
holy Trinity — Christ Church — the Church of the Holy 
Spirit — Saint George's Church. By what Name did the 
Apostles denote the Building, the place where they came 
together to join in worship ? The Temple, with its services, 
had by the advent of the prototype, the Divine Intercessor 
in Person, in the fiesh, ceased. The Synagogue, however 
remained, and, deducing frorii the volume of Scripture as 
the authority, the preferable presumption, (I choose to ex- 
press myself with diffidence,) would seem to be, that they 
continued it, with its mode of rule, and of Oversight, or 
charge, by an Eldership ; and hence with its Name. Two 
passages will be cited, and the last perhaps to be received 
as decisive. " Not forsaking the assembling ourselves to- 
gether" — in the original, " synagogueing." " If there come 
into your assembly a man" — in the original " synagogue." 
The Puritans, doubtless, adopted the preferable translation, 
or name, a Meeting House. 

Another instance of the not improbable effect of mere 
Name. The Dutch, in their version of the Scriptures, at 
the Reformation, in translating the Greek Episcopos, rejected 
the exotic Blschoff, and betook themselves to the indigenous 
Opsiender ; in the compound, preposition for preposition, 
and verb for verb. The great Reformer did not in his Ver- 
sion, take the kindred German indigenous Aufscher, Over- 
seer, but adhered to the exotic Bischojf. He, however, was 
consistent ; for when he came to the passage, where the 



Benson's memoir. 25 

Greek Episcopous occurs, he translated it by the plural 
Bisrhoffen, thereby making the whole College of Ephesian 
Elders Bishops. Had the English been uniform in their 
Version, and translated the Grreek Episcopos throughout, 
as they have done in the passage alluded to, by their alike 
correspondent indigenous Overseer, there would perhaps 
have been the like effect as with the Dutch, not even a 
term, or name, in their language left tor EWscopacy. 

Before quitting the subject, chiefly occupying the last 
four paragraphs, 1 would mention the fact, not only as au- 
thority for the early, and doubtless universal, use of the 
name Sundai/, but also for another purpose, which will be 
perceived without farther intimation ; that it is the name 
b}^ which the Emperor Constantine denotes the dav- • ''i ' 
Edict, enjoining the religious observance of it. T 
instance of the interposition or agency of the seculai . . w.- 
reignty ire aid of the kingdom of Christ. It is a maxim ; 
and to repeat it in the Diction of the highly endowed Gen- 
tile from whom I borrow it, " Omnia mala exempla ex bonis 
orta sunt." Not un frequently vouched by Christian Doc- 
tors ; but as it checks project and innovation, less frequently 
heeded by them. It may be translated, " that scarcely an 
evil example or effect, not to be traced to good or sincere 
beginning." The names of the evil effects of the pious zeal 
of the imperial convert, Hierarchy, or religious establish- 
ment ; and the thing signified, found even at the present 
day, throughout the whole of European Christendom. 

I pray it may be noticed that I am still within my subject, 
Names ; so that if all true, then all right. 

Skipper Block named the Norvvalk Islands, Archipelago \ 
Stratford, or the Indian Housatenick, River, Royenbergh's 
River ; an Island in the Sound, Yalchen, Falcon or Hawk, 
Island, not improbable from the resort of the Fish Hawk 
there, corrupted by some to Fawknei-'s, by others, to Falk- 
land, Island. The Connecticut he named the Versche, Fresh, 
River, doubtless as to be distinguished from the south and 
north rivers, in sooner meeting with fresh water on enter- 
ing it from the sea. 

The Dutch built a Fort on the Flat, the western bank of 
it, now the city of Hartford, for the protection of their 
trade with the Indians, and called the Fort, at times, the 
HuYS, the trading house, van goede hope, of good hope. Jo- 
hannes De La Montagne, of the council of New Nether- 
land, and Doctor of Medicine, was the Governor ; Trum- 
bull, the historiographer of Connecticut, calls him Monsieur 
4 



^ 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 



^Montague; the surname Montague, appertaining to an an- 
bient and noble family in England ; he says, the Dutch 
"Called the Fort the Hirse of Good Hope ; if the word was 
■ever in' their language, it has since become obsolete; he 
also says, "the Indians had no set meals, but, like other 
wild creatures, ate when they were hungry, and could find 
kny thing to satisfy the cravings of nature, and dressed 
their corn with a clam-shell, or with a stick made flat and 
sharp at one end, and that the Dutch* were always intru- 
ders, and had no right to any part of this country." The 
rule of the good nature of criticism is, " that where much 
splendor in the pages, not to suffer ourselves to be offended 
at B. ^" " specks ; and it is to be hoped, the historian would 
orne from so angrily calling names, had he known 
^ery friendly mention his brother of New Nether- 
land makes of his countrymen. The indiscretion of at- 
tempting the history of this country, not well read in the 
Dutch ! Van Dei" Donck, speaking of the Pumpkin, expresses 
himself, " It grows here with little or no labor, and need 
not yield to the apple for sweetness, so that the English, 
who generally love whatever tastes sweet, use it in their 
Pies." 

I knew one of the same name with the Governor ; John 
De La Montague, ordinarily pronounced Jan Montagne, 
sexton of the old Dutch Church in Garden-street, "the 
street adjoining the garden of Alderman Johannes Kip," 
built in 1692; the grant for the ground from the Corpora- 
tion of the city the preceding year, and "the Common 
Council resolving itself into a grand committee to attend 
to the surveying and laying it out;" taken down in 1810, 
and the present one built on the same site. I saw him at 
the house of my parents ; I, in my earliest youth ; he ap- 
proaching to fourscore. He was on his round to collect 
the Dominie's Gelt, the minister's salary; for the Dutch al- 
ways took care the stipend to the minister should be com- 
petent, that so he never might be straitened " to desire a 
gift." He told me his father and grandfather before him, 
the latter probably the same as mentioned in the Records, 
1649, "Jan da la Montagne, schoolmaster, with 250 guild- 
ers salary," had been the sexton of the congregation, so that, 
as I have it from the relation of others, the successive in- 
cumbents having been as well of the same Christian as 
surname, the name had as it were become the name of the 

* See Note VIII. 



bgnson's memoir. 27 

office, like Den Keyser, the CcBsar, the Emperor, and ac- 
cordingly when the English, having built a church, had 
also a sexton, the Dutch children, and not impos-sible some 
adults, called him de Engelshe Jan Mqntagne, the J^nglish 
John Montague. He told me his grandfather was the sex- 
ton when the church was within the fort, and which, trpm 
the inscription in Dutch, on a marble, doubtless placed in 
front of it, found buried in the earth, and then removed to 
the belfry of the church in Garden-street, when the fort 
was taken down, a few years since, appears to have been 
built as early as 1642. The site of the first church, the 
late church in Garden-street, considered as the third m suc- 
cession perhaps not to be now farther ascertained than as 
a piece' of ground referred to in 1G99, '• as belongmg to the 
Dutch congregation," and in 1715, " as once called the Oude 
Kerck, old Church, and afterwards the house of Allard 
Anthony, and lying between Custom-house-street, the por- 
tion of Pearl-street between White-hall and Broad-street, 
" and Bridge-street, and fronting on Broad-street. He 
further told me that when, on the surrender of the town to 
the Eno-lish, they took the church for a part of the day, his 
grandfather still ofHciated. An instance of singular libe- 
rality ' He. a son of the church of Holland, " still keeping 
the door of the temple," when the service within it accord- 
ino- to the ritual of the church of England ! Perhaps he 
thouo-ht, there being no difference between the confession- 
als of the two churches, the ritual ought to make none ; 
nay, were it supposed, merely however for the sake of the 
supposition, because, as applied to him personally not to 
be imagined possible, that both confessional and ritual 
were to^him matters of indifference ; still it may be a ques- 
tion, whether his liberality would not be left the same it 
being now ascertained, what has been long suspected, that 
boasted liberality, in matters of religion, and utter indiffer- 
ence about them, the one easily made to resolve itself into 

the other. .u 

On the death of my cotemporary, the consistory gave the 
office to his son, who enjoyed it till the disper.^ion of the 
congregation, on the invasion of the city in 1776 ;— an of- 
fice—that it was in the church, sufficient, according to the 
notion of the day, to make it respectable ; that the emolu- 
ment, sparing as it was, came sensibly in aidtothesus^ 
tentation of the family, sufficient to make it lucrative ; both 
sufficient to make it desirable, and consequently to invite 
competition ; in the gift, and held at the pleasure, of a body. 



28 Benson's memoir. 

themselves fluctuating, one half going out yearly by rota- 
tion; and we here see it passing, as an inheritance from 
father to son, for four generations, and for a period, little 
short, if any thing, of a century and a half. What an in- 
ducement to the father to due demeanor in it, " the hope of 
the recompense," that after him it would be bestowed on 
his son ! What encouragement to the son, the hope of the 
gift, to render himself deserving of it ! What proof of char- 
acter in those who have gone before us !* How stable ! 
how constant ! " how changed are we from them !" Scarce 
an election, and a change, not at least meditated ; and, 
should we continue thus, '• variable and mutable," it is to 
be apprehended the time may come, when our beautiful 
and spacious City Hall of marble, including the piers be- 
tween the windows in the snug cupola of wood on the top 
of it; nay, taking in the old Bridewell, left to stand as a. 
wing to it : lurther still, expand it, so as to cover the neat 
grassplot in front of it, if it were not a pity to spoil it,f and 
especially enclosed as it is with pales of a due height, like 
the dense iron work in iront of St. Paul's, to hide the base 
of the building, the whole will not furnish wall for the por- 
traits of all and singular our successive governors and 
mayors. 

In addition to the probability from the circumstance just 
mentioned, that the name of the person was conceived to 
be the name of the otEce, my cotemporary having called 
his eldest son John, I infer, it was also his father's name, 
and it being his own name, I in like manner infer it was 
the name of his grandfather ; so that the family appears to 
have been, from as far back as we can trace it, constantly 
and duly mindful of the duty of respect, and, as it would 
seem, in the opinion of some, a respect allied to piety, in a 
son to call his son after his own father. Lest, however, I 
should be conceived as laying down this duty as of uni- 
versal obligation, it has appeared to me proper to state a 
few cases, and from which it may easily be reasoned to 
others, where I think it may be dispensed with. 

A father and a son — the son the first of the family ever 
rich ; his coach at the door, and his plate on the sideboard, 
and, as a thing of course, arms on both. His riches ; en- 
titled "to call them his own, he made them himself;" his 
coach and his plate, no one entitled to grudge him them ; 
but the arms, the borrowed plume, always more than half 

* See Note IX. t See Note X. 



Benson's memoir. 29 

spoils all ; even granting the family deduced from the croi- 
sades, and, with it, its gentility never interrupted not an 
instance of servile occupation in the whole line of descent 
and so the plumage not assumed, still, in a community with 
our institutions-a/e«///«-. The father, a mechanic of the 
humblest order, a son of St. Crispin, alike ready to serv-e a 
customer, whether to mend or make, and so never above 
his business, and so all sense; in morals all loorth, and so, it 
I may be permitted in a play on the word, and in an allu- 
sion to his vocation, "no rest or residue of him leather 
Here an exemption arises by mere force of elevation ot 
condition ; it has been given to the son to become rich ; the 

father is left poor. j • i ^ -f 

A name, abstracted from the sole and simple use ot it, 
the surname to distinguish between families, the Christian 
name between individuals of the same family or of the 
same surname, "is a sound, and no more ; yet as the 
sound may happen to be, so it may be decisive against 
taking it as a name ; and which furnishes another case ot 
exemption. , ^ ^ 

To illustrate by the case already stated. Let us suppose 
the son disposed to honor his father, and to that end to 
waive his exemption ; but at the same time let the name^ot 
the father, instead of Eugenio, or any other name oi that 
stamp, be supposed to be some old-fashion, or, which comes 
to the same thing, some Old-Testament, name ; take one of 
the lesser prophets, say Habakkuk, the name given to the la- 
ther, by his father, in his day somewhat inclined to 1 uritan- 
ism; now the trying question presents itself; can a lather 
ever be held to call a son after a grandfather with such a 
name? I answer this question by asking another which an- 
swers itself; can a lady be held to call a daughter Bridget, 
after her mother, the name given to her by her mother, 
great grandmother to Miss to be named, she having been 
at the time a cook-maid? 

Where the brothers are numerous, another case. 
Here the exemption arises from the necessity of the 
thing itself, as will be perceived. ^, . ,. 

So in the habit of calling the first name the Christian 
name, I cannot forbear from it, even when referring to a 
Jew-case for illustration. 

If every of the sons of the Patriarch had called a son 
after their common father, a moiety of the Hebrew alpha- 
bet must have been impressed into the service to distin- 



30 Benson's memoir. 

guish between the twelve grandsons of the same Christian 
name ; and if the sons of these grandsons had also each 
called a son after his father, and the like repeated toiies 
quoties as often as an every other generation came into esse, 
into existence, it would require the powers of a Franklin 
to calculate the number of Jacobs among the tribes at the 
time of David's census. 

I have selected Franklin as the calculator for a reason 
arising from the following fact.* 

By his last will and testament, made in the year of our 
Lord one thousand seven hundred eighty-eight, and in the 
eighty-second of his own age. or rather by a codicil thereto, 
showing it was on the more mature deliberation, and that 
he was still not '" without counsel" in himself, and now ap- 
pearing in the same volume with his life, written by him- 
self, doubtless for the benefit of those who were to come 
after him, he bequeaths to his country " a political opinion, 
that in a democratical state there ought to be no offices of 
profit," than which certainly nothing can be conceived more 
salutary in theory, but, considering the weakness of our 
frame, nothing perhaps less to be hoped for in practice. 
He then, as it were to set the example in himself, proceeds 
to give to the town of Boston, in return for having given 
him birth, " one thousand pounds sterling, part of an im- 
drawn salary, as President of the State of Pennsylvania, 
to be let upon interest, at five per cent, per annum, to such 
young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five 
years, as shall have served an apprenticeship in the town, 
and faithfully fulfilled the duties required in their inden- 
tures, so as to obtain a good moral character from at least 
two respectable citizens, who are willing to become sure- 
ties in the bond with the applicants for the repa3'ment of 
the money so lent, with interest ;" but it occurring to him, 
at least so it is to be presumed, that an apprentice serving 
his apprenticeship thoroughly, faithfully ; studious and anx- 
ious for his master's interest as if his own ; his master not 
wholly free from Debt, himself not wholly at Ease; would 
probably come to think it the better course for persons entering 
into life, instead of instantly betaking themselves to borrow- 
ing /or ??ieans in aid of their business, to wait for them till 
acquired by their own efforts ; and it thence occurring to 
him further, that the description in the bequest duly ad- 
hered to, and at the same time depending on the town of 

« See Note XL 



Benson's memoir. 31 

Boston alone, there would be a hazard of a failure of a 
sufficiency of borrowers to employ the whole capital, and 
with it a failure of his own calculation of the actual in- 
crease of it, he had the precaution to provide, " that should 
there in time be more than the occasion in Boston may re- 
quire, the other towns in the State to have it ; and the prin- 
cipal and interest paid, to be again let out to fresh borrow- 
ers, and which he calculated would, in one hundred years, 
be one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, of which the 
town were, in their discretion, to lay out one hundred thou- 
sand pounds in public works, the remaining thirty-one 
thousand pounds to be continued to be laid out at interest 
in the manner above directed, for one hundred years, when 
he calculated the sum would be four millions and sixty-one 
thousand pounds sterling ; one million and sixty-one thou- 
sand pounds to be disposed of by the town, and the remain- 
ing three nullions by the government of the State, not pre- 
suming to carry his views farther," — and no wonder — to 
have gone on with the accumulation for another cycle of 
two hundred years, and all intermediate contingencies duly 
guarded against, would certainly have been a most unrea- 
sonable draft on human providency. It may be a question, 
whether a testamentary disposition of this kind would not 
now with us be adjudged void, as within the prohibition 
intended by our statute, generally known as the restrain- 
ing act,* making it unlawful for persons, without an incor- 
poration, to the effect of a license, from the legislature, to 
lend monies, the sum generally not large, so as to keep 
themselves always in condition to accommodate others ; the 
lenders furnishing the borrowers with their own notes as 
the currency, in the place of coin; a promissory note with 
an endorser the security ; a day of payment expressed, and 
in no instance exceeding ninety days, yet the note under- 
stood to be renewed from time to time, the interest accrued 
to be paid at each renewal, and the principal not to be 
called for unless on a previous convenient notice ; and to 
receive monies as deposited for safe keeping ; or in fewer 
words, simply to follow the business of hanking, as under- 
stood among us ; the good to arise to the -public, to prevent 
an undue jnultiplication of banks, and a further benefit, 
since discovered, a relief, as far as it goes, from the burden 
of taxes, payment into the treasury of a sum, the price of 
the license. 

* See Note XII. 



32 Benson's memoir. 

I might here enlarge on several particulars. I will, how- 
ever only, and biiefly, mention a few of them. 

Calling a child after a friend not yet deceased — the in- 
convenience, as it sometimes happens the best friends part 
before death parts them. 

To show our zeal for the party, calling a son after a dis- 
tinguished leader in it ; a similar inconvenience, should the 
father or godfather find it more convenient to change his 
party ; in either case, the name always a thing in the icay. 

"Following great names," in naming a son — the greater 
the name, the more sad, should he prove " the heaviness of 
his mother." The man of wisdom has selected the mother 
as the depository of the pride, and so, in great measure, of 
the principle, wholly of the sensibility, of the family. 

Double, treble, quadruple names, and so on, for I find no 
limit prescribed by fashion, law laid out of the question, as 
" of no avail if unfashionable to observe it," to the number 
of names ; it must doubtless be still understood, they are 
not to be more numerous than can conveniently be retained 
in the recollection, nor too much time lost in repeating 
them all ; for if some are never to be repeated, but ever to 
be left mute, then, for aught appearing, they might as well 
have been left out at first ; at the same time, where several 
expecting the compliment, and we wishing always to please 
all, and of course very careful never to offend any ; a dispo- 
sition, if we find it in us, certainly to be cherished ; there, 
to be safe against the disappointment, a failure of the re- 
quisite successive christenings, to take a number of the 
names at once, ought perhaps to be considered only as a 
branch of that economy of opportunity usually intended by 
killing two birds ivith one stone. 

Making surnames do duty also as Christian names, and 
enough of the latter on the ground, and, so far from asking 
the relief, entitled to complain of being injured in rank or 
precedence ; and none being discernible for it, either as 
founded in taste or utility, or in any thing else, it is to be 
viewed as among the numberless instances of arbitrary 
exercise of power, where " the will is to suffice for the rea- 
son ;" and it were to be wished that some, chargeable with 
it, would make the case their own ; they know how they 
have felt at times at seeing others raised to a level with them- 
selves. 

Naming counties, towns, villages, streets, forts, and so 
forth, after the heroes and other worthies of our land, by 
formal public authority, a sort of legislative monument. 



Benson's memoir. 33 

which has this to recommend it to republican economy, that 
it comes cheap, so that if on a just estimate of the name and 
fame, at a future day, it should be found not to have been 
worth preserving, there will be little, if any thing, to be re- 
gretted as having been throum away ; and the late fate of 
the name of a street, and where the worth great and un- 
questionable, shows it even at best precarious. The vestry 
of Trinity church, however, need not want a name for their 
venerable churchwarden, Colonel Joseph Robinson, and 
Park Place, at the same time, left undisturbed ; they have 
only to petition the Common Council for leave to resume 
their original name for Rector^ Street, before laying out their 
grounds on Broadway, Rob/nson-Street. A monument* to 
come cheap ! as cheap as where the money for one of mar- 
ble or bronze, whether furnished from the public treasury^ 
or contributed from the private purses of individuals, being 
grudged as an improvident expenditure, is raised bt/ way of 
lottery, it costs nothing. " There, my lord," said the pious 
and loyal Jebusite to his prince, " is the threshing floor to 
build an altar, there the oxen for burnt sacrifice and the 
threshing instruments for wood, and wheat for the meat 
offering, take them to thee and offer, I give them all :" — 
" Nay," replied the man who slew a giant, " I will not take 
for the Lord that which is thine ; I will buy them of thee 
at the full price ; I will not offer of that which doth cost me 
nothing." 

Let this suffice under this head of discourse, since the 
whole may be considered as resolving itself into this as a 
general conclusion, that inasmuch as in the most simple 
preparation of one of the most simple articles of our food, 
roasting an egg, it is true to a proverb, there is to be reason, 
much more ought there to be reason in giving a name. 
- Now to attend again to Skipper Block, in his cruise of 
discovery. 

He called an island in the sound Visscher's Island, Fish- 
er's Island, and the eastern point of Long Island, Visschrr's 
Hoeck, Fisher's Point. A map of New Netherland, scarcely 
more than a tolerable diagram of it, but being as early as 
1642, probably the first, was by a person of the name of 
Yisscher. PUm Islands, the name he gave them, translated. 
Block Island, the skipper's own name. I trust it did not 
proceed from himself : it would give me regret he should 
be found among those, " who thinking their dwelling places 

* See Note XIII. 



34 Benson's memoir. 

are to continue to all generations, call their lands after their 
own names." The next island eastward, he called Martin 
Wyngaard's Island, Martin Vineyard' s Island, corrupted to 
Martha^s Vineyard. An island in Penobscot Bay, and 
Cape Ann, called by the same name, the latter Wyn- 
gaard's HoECK, Vineyards Point. The island in the sound 
is, in the grant from King Charles to the Duke of York, 
and in the confirmations for it, and in those for the adjacent 
islands, where referred to, called the island of Martiiis 
Vineyard Whoever the person intended was, he must have 
been distinguished for his station, or skill, or enterprise. 
Stith, of Virginia, says that " Gosnold, in the summer of 
1602, among other places on the coast, visited Marthas 
Vineyard, and finding plenty of strawberries, raspberries, 
and divers other fruit, in bloom, he therelore called it Mar- 
tha's Vineyard"* Had the historian himself visited the 
island, he would have been ssitisfied frmit fulness could never 
have suggested the name for it. We have already noticed 
specimens of this kind of etymological dialectic ; the name 
of the island Barren Island, the soil barren, hence the name ; 
Coney, the same with Rabbit, the name of the island Coney 
Island ; it must have taken its name from the animal, and 
hence once in numbers on it; because the island called 
Vineyard, it abounded in fruit. It is only requested to bear 
in mind lor the present, Martler's Rock, and the Fly-Market. 
A family in Albany, and from the earliest time, of the 
name of Wyngaard. The last, in the male line, Lucas 
Wyngaard, died about sixty years ago, never married, and 
leaving estate — the invitation to his funeral very general — 
those who attended returned after the interment, as was 
the usage, to the house of the deceased at the close of the 
one day, and a number never left it until the dawn of the 
next. In the course of the night a pipe of wine, stored in 
Ihe cellar for some years before for the occasion, drank ; 
dozens of papers of tobacco consumed ; grosses of pipes 
broken ; scarce a whole decanter or glass left ; and, to crown 
it, the pall-bearers made a bonfire of their scarves on the 
hearth — bordering on barbarism ! not to be denied. We 
are more temperate, wholly free from excess and riot — ad- 
mitted. The causes of this improvement in manners ? — one 
will be intimated. Let not the severe among us rail too 
severely at the yoimg lady^s tea party, and the cotillion on 

[* See Archer's Account of Gosnold's Voyage, re-printed from Purchas, III. 
Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 75.] 



Benson's memoir. 35 

the carpet to her piano. We are improved in manners- 
true, and so far to our credit ; but is there more of order 
among us, each one knowing his place ? more of deference 
to superiors : and superiors more regardful of station ? more 
of love oi corintry, and less of profession of it? more of 
courage, and less vaunt of it ? more of the spi7'it of freemen, 
and so more of disdain of unworthy submission to the will 
of another? more solicitous for estimation, and so more so- 
licitous to merit it ? more of truth, its modes, candor, sin- 
cerity, fidelity? Inquire of the Nestors who have lived both 
ages. 

To the largest of the Elizabeth Islands, Block gave the 
name of the Texel, to Nantucket the name of Vlielandt. 
Extract from the voyage of Hudson as found in De Laet. 
" They made the land again in 41 deg. 43 minutes of north 
latitude, and supposed it to be an island, and gave it the 
name of Nieuwe Hollandt, New Holland, but afterwards 
found it was Cape Cod" The Dutch notwithstanding af- 
terwards distinguished it as Staaten Hoeck, State's Point; 
and also by its French name, Cape Blanc, translated Witte 
Hoeck, White Point. 

The Dutch name for our city was Nieuwe Amsterdam; 
to the tract, the plantations on the North river for about 
four miles, they gave the name of Bloemen'd Dal, syllable 
for syllable, Blooming Dale. There were two other seats 
on the island, probably not far distant from the town, and 
distinguished as Dats Dales — Vreden-dal, Peace-dale, the 
property of Dr. De La Montagne, and Zegen-dal, Blessing- 
dale, the proprietor not mentioned ; hence the conjecture 
not remote, that Bloemen'd Dal, however at first the name 
of an individual seat, soon served to denote the whole 
neighborhood of farms there, collectively. 

The creek, the water between the north end of the island 
and the West-Chester shore, they called Spyt den Duyvel 
Kill, literally, in spite of the Devil Creek; a ford there be- 
fore Kingsbridge built, and the spot distinguished as the 
FoNTEYN, the Springs. 

The northern chop of the entrance from the Bay into 
the Kills, retains its Dutch name Konstabel's Hoeck, Con- 
stable's Hook; its Indian, Nipnichsen. Communipa, is In- 
dian; Paulus Hoeck, a person by the name of Paulus 
ScHRtcK, and of note in the colony, described in a very 
early grant for lands in this city, as of the " Town of Bergen, 
in New Jersey;" Pavonia, a name given by the Dutch to 
the ground, the front or shore of it on the river still passing 



36 Benson's memoir. 

by its Indian name Aliasimus ; it was reserved by the 
Dutch West bidia Company as a peculiar demesne, the 
purpose not known; IIoboken, a Dutch name, Harme Van 
Hoboken, clerk of the church, 1050 ; TFee/iaM'A, is Indian ; 
Joncker's Kill, Yonkei-''s Creek ; Joncker from Jonge Herr, 
the young Lord, the appellation once for the heir of the 
family after come to the age of maturity ; none perhaps 
nearer to it than Bachelor, and in instances, the person, 
although afterwards mairied, continued to be known by it 
during his life ; the historian himself, the grantee in a grant, 
1648, by the name of Joncker Van Der Donck ; Balthazer 
De Vosch, a party in a suit b}^ the name of Joncker De 
VoscH : the name of the Joncker, the proprietor of the 
creek, now Saw Mill creek, Van Der Kee ; and it is still to 
be collected from documents, as not being improbable, that 
the lands granted to Van Der Donck, and perhaps includ- 
ing the island of the Indian name of Papnrbninon, the 
northern shore at Kingsbridge, were the neighborhood call- 
ed the lower Yonckers as to be distinguished from the other 
Yonckers, the lands of Van Der Kee on the Saw-mill 
Creek ; Tappaanse Zee, from the name of the tribe of In- 
dians inhabiting the western shore ; the country there, and to 
some extent, denoted, in Vjsscher's map as the colonie of a 
person of the name of Nederhorst ; of not equal enterprise, 
as has appeared, with Killian Van Rensselaer, " a most 
zealous promoter," says Van Der Donck, " and hearty 
friend, of New Netherland, always to his death." Pow- 
nall, in a journal of a passage from Albany to New York, 
in 1755, calls it Topang Sea, not unlike a Chinese name ; 
the point or peninsula, the northern chop of the bay, or en- 
trance into Croton river, the Skippers called Sarah's Point ; 
the Indians gave it to William and Sarah Teller, husband 
and wife, and she survived him ; the promontory on the west- 
ern shore, opposite to it, Verdreitige IIoeck, Tedious Point ; 
it occupies such a space on the shore, that in a calm or the 
wind foul, long in passing it ; Haverstroo, literally oat 
straw, the name of the tract of arable land immediatel}^ 
above it ; its Indian name Kwnochenack. Stony Point re- 
tains its Dutch name translated; the British took possession 
of it, and fortified it, in the war of the Revolution ; the as- 
sault and capture of it by Wayne, an exploit, for gallantry 
and success, in our offensive warfare on the land, remain- 
ing to be equalled. 'I he Donder Bergii, and on the east side 
of the river the Kill of Jan Peek, retaining their Dutch 
names ; the promontory just above Peek's Kill, presenting 



Benson's memoir. 37 

itself on turning the point of the Donder Bergh, they called 
Antonie's Neub, corrupted to f^aint Anthony's Nose. 

At the period when the opinion began to prevail that the 
calendar ought to be revised and reformed, the Dutch 
judged it preferable, at least for themselves, to make one 
anew, and to take their own time for it; even the cases of 
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, favored suitors as they are, 
and unquestionably entitled to be, are still suffered to lay 
over, and, to preserve the question entire, they are guarded 
to this day to speak of them only as plain Peter and plain 
Paul. In every instance where the court of claims have 
proceeded to a definite sentence, they have uniformly dis- 
missed the petition. Briefly to report a few cases as speci- 
mens, the decision however only and the p?-inciple of it, 
omitting, as not called for by the occasion, the arguments 
of counsel. 

Patrick of Kirkpatrick in Scotland — he emigrated to 
Ireland ; the reason why not known, and the era not hav- 
ing come down to us as one peculiarly of reform or revo- 
lution in government, none can be imagined ; that it was 
with the hope a consistory could be found there to pass him 
with less scrutiny, evidently a fling by the native at the 
adopted country. If objected, that the word not allowed 
in grave discourse, the answer, that there is no synonyme 
for it in the language, and no periphrasis without employ- 
ing, at least, half a score of others, and then perhaps, as 
not unusual, falling short of the exact sense. 

Man, from his very condition, can have only one native 
country ; it can never be said of him, he was born in two 
countries ;. if Patrick had expressed himself, he was an 
Irishman born in Scotland, it would have been obviously a 
blunder ; but while this is admitted on the one hand, it 
ought to be so on the other, that the objection to having an 
adopted country, that if you may have one, j^ou may have 
more, and as many more, one after another, as may suit ; 
as many wedlocks as ports in a voyage in succession to 
touch at, is as obviously futile. 

The Dutch readily acknowledged the merit of ridding a 
community of reptiles, and so far the petitioner had no reason 
to complain that justice was not done him ; still there was 
a reason, and it was sufficient, which must forever forbid 
them from having a good-liking to him, they were republi- 
cans, and his very name, Patrick, a direct derivative from 
the Latin Pairicius, signifying noble man or Aristocrat. 

George of Cappadocia, the champion Saint of the English ; 



38 Benson's memoir. 

although the Dutch had never read Gibbon, nor, another 
great historian who had just preceded him, and if they had, 
it would not have escaped their sagacity that both were to 
be watched when writing about the Saints ; they however 
had the fact from another quarter, and it was sufficient, 
that George expelled their favorite Athanasius from his 
episcopal throne of Alexandria, and usurped it himself; for 
although liberal in a toleration to strangers, for the sake of 
trade, still, as among themselves, strenuous for the necessity 
of a quicunque vuU* in order, as they would express them- 
selves, to know where to find a man ; for be it known, that 
to profess one way and believe another, was never known 
among the Dutch. 

Anthony of Egypt ; the first monk, and hence to be sup- 
posed foremost in the heresy of " forbidding to marry ;" 
nothing ever to be called after him. 

Nicholas of Patara, in Lysia. Here something like an 
interlocutory was entered. From the legend, as preserved 
by the learned Egnatius of Venice, it appeared he had se- 
cretly put in at the window of a father, so " distressed in 
estate," as to have become "afflicted in mind" to despera- 
tion, a sum expressed to be "of no small weight in gold," 
and thereby saved him from bartering his three daughters to 
ruin ; it was further offered in evidence, " that he was de- 
scended from rich parents," to show how his heart had been 
preserved to him " in all the time of his wealth ;" the fact 
being well known, the counsel against the petition, to save 
the necessity of proof, admitted it, and its pertinency to the 
inquiry ; the cause was ordered to be retained for further 
advisement, and in the meantime the petitioner to have 
leave to take and use the name of Sanctus Klaas ; that he 
be deemed so far tutelar, as that his anniversary, it being 
referred to the proper officer of the court to ascertain it, be 
kept ; and that the children, in their little hymn of thanks, 
for the good things, the reward for going to bed early, found 
in the stocking, hung up in the corner on the eve of it, and 
put in by him during the night as he rides in his waggon, 
filled with them over the roofs of the houses, and down and 
up the chimneys, might address him as Goedt Heyligh Man, 
good holy man. 

A peculiarity, as to be collected from these reports, mak- 
ing the likings and dislikes rest on a single reason, and, of 
course, the sufficiency and sincerity of them brought to a 

* See Note XIV. 



Benson's memoir. 39 

single test, and which the Dutch, '* their minds ever con- 
scious of rectitude," never shunned. 

There was a day always kept here by the Dutch, and 
the keeping: of it delegated by the mothers to their daugh- 
ters still at a school, vrouwen dagh, womarCs day ; the same 
day with the Valentine's day of the English, and although 
differently, still, perhaps, not less salutarily, kept. Every 
mother's daughter furnished with a piece of cord, the size 
neither too large nor too small ; the twist neither too hard 
nor too loose ; a turn round the hand and then a due length 
left to serve as a lash ; not fair to have a knot at the end 
of it, but fair to practise for a few days to acquire the 
slight ; the law held otherwise in duelling. On the morn- 
ing of the day, the youngster never venturing to turn a 
corner without first listening whether no warblers behind 
it. No golden apples to divert from the direct course in 
this race. Schoolboy Hippomenes, espied and pursued by 
charmer Atalanta ; he encumbered with his satchel, still 
striving to outrun, and, to add to his speed, bending for- 
ward, thereby giving the requisite roundness to the space 
between the shoulders ; she too swift afoot for him, and 
overtaking him, and three or four strokes briskly and 
smartly laid on ; he, to avoid a further repetition, stopping 
and turning ; she looking him steadfast in the eye, and per- 
ceiving it required all the man in him to keep back the tear ; 
not all the fruit in all the orchards of the Hesperides, and 
in their best bearing year, to compensate for the exultation 
of the little heart for the moment. The boys insisted the 
next day should be theirs, and be called mannen dagh, man's 
day ; but my masters were told, the law would thereby de- 
feat its own very purpose, which was that they should, at 
an age, and in a way, most likely never to forget it, receive 
the lesson of manliness, he is never to strike. 

This privilege has been neglected for such a length of 
time, that, perhaps, it is never again to be recovered ; I do 
not however think it lays in onr mouth to charge the other 
sex, that rather than be at the trouble, and especially if at- 
tended with expense, to preserve rights, let them he lost. 

I have now to do with my own party, and, therefore, the 
other party not entitled to take offence at any thing I may 
say. 

My own party, the Federal party, by their primitive perfect 
naine without the subsequejitly invented addition of Repub- 
lican. Is it not in the Constitution itself, that those who 
formed it were Republicans? Suppose, yes — then "the ea- 



40 Benson's memoir. 

pression of it wholly inoperative." Suppose, no — will call- 
ing themselves so make them so? There will be parties 
where the government is free ; still, "wo unto them through 
whom they come." A neutral &mong fj-eetnen, a solecism in 
character; perhaps, nearer the truth, ?io character; hence, 
every one sees the necessity of a parti/ tiam", if only to live 
hy ill the community ; for there is the formalist in politics 
as well as in religion ; regular in giving his vote, never 
failing to observe the day of the election, but as for money for 
the expense of it, not a thousandth part of a tithe ; the vote 
fulfils all patriotism with him — he wants no public office — 
certainly not — you only leave him to earn and to save, and 
he will leave it to you to sustain the government to protect 
him in the enjo3nnent of his earnings and his savings — he 
M^ants no public office — wonderful self-denial ! We v\^ere 
once the subjects of a prince, the supreme magistracy in 
him as an inheritance, the people privileged to choose 
only a portion, a third branch, of the legislature ; by the 
revolution, all power in them ; all office of their gift ; they 
the " fountain of all honor ;" whence is it, that the same 
thing which was then so sought, should now, and by the 
same class, those desirous to be distinguished for their 
wealth, and otherwise for their condition, be so slighted? 
I leave this question to the learned scribe, and wise dis- 
puter, among us, never at a loss concerning any thing, "the 
subject of knowledge or the subject of being ;" but it being 
of some moment, if we are to hope to come out right, to 
see to it a little that we set out right, I would recommend 
to them — they will pardon it should it appear too didactic 
— to begin with the first of the alphabetical rhymes in their 
Primer,* to serve as the ground- work of all explanation of 
a moral phenomenon. 

The promontory in the Highlands called Antonie's Nose, 
after Antonie De Hooge, secretary of the colony of Rens- 
selaerwyck. Herman Rutgers, the ancestor of the respect- 
able family of the name among us, married his daughter 
and only child. 

The Dutch divided the whole river into Racks, Reaches; 
there were thirteen in number ; three of them, being those 
only where the portion of the river, or distance in it, deno- 
ted by each, can now be ascertained, will be particularly 
noticed. The following are the names of others, translated 
from the Dutch, and the probable order of them from south 

« See Note XV. 



Benson's memoir. 41 

to north, the Horse reach, the Sail Maker's reach, the Cook's 
reach, the High reach, the Fox reach, the Baker s reach, 
John Pleasure's reach, the Hart's reach, the Sturgeon reach, 
Fisher's reach, and the Fast reach, as imijorting ^/v/;, not 
swift. 

The Martklaer's Rack, the Martyr's reach, the short 
reach instantly on passing West Point. It has been said 
that Martelaer was in use among the Dutch, figuratively, 
to signify contending or struggling, as well as suffering. 
The reach is more at a right angle with the general course 
of the river than any other in it, and you may have the 
wind from the westward, and still so fair as to lay your 
coui'se the whole of the distance from New York to Albany, 
till you come to turn West Point, and then right ahead, so 
that you have to heat, and to contend, and struggle with it, 
to weather the high rocky point on the opposite side of the 
river. 

Pownall, in the journal already referred to, says, " on 
having entered this pass," the pass at the Boter Bergh, 
Butter Hill, from its supposed resemblance to a roll of but- 
ter, " a very peculiar rock, called Martler's Rock, projects 
from the east into the river, and at the foot of these im- 
mense high mountains, although it is as high as a sloop's 
mast, looks like a dwarf or mole." The journalist was af- 
terwards governor of the colony of Massachusetts Bay ; 
and if, judging from Martler's Rock and Topang Sea, it 
should be insinuated, that seemingly the ministry at home, 
the mode of expression generally used when speaking of the 
administration in the parent country, did not always exer- 
cise the best care and judgment in choosing governors for 
the colonies, it may be conceded, and not to be wondered 
at ; had they been, as we have since become, privileged to 
choose for themselves in their own case, it must be pre- 
sumed, and to borrow the phraseology of that pai"t of the 
ancient writ of election for members of Parliament, doubt- 
less intended as admonition to the electors from the. Lord 
Chancellor, the keeper of the sovereign's conscience, it be- 
ing of his functions to issue it, " the best, most able, cmd dis- 
creet men for business," would have been sought for and 
preferred. We however must do them the justice, that, 
as it regarded us, they were so far mindful of the respect 
due to us, as never to disparage us by placing over us a 
person of mean condition. Indeed, it was something we 
used to boast of above our neighbors, that of our governors 
in chief, the greater part of them w^ere either noblemen, or 



42 Benson's memoir. 

of noble descent, or of the order of knighthood. The In- 
dian name of only one of the whole number has come 
down to us, the name given to Fletcher. The occasion is 
thus related by our historian, among the transactions of the 
winter of 1G93: " The governor was a soldier by profession 
— his extraordinary despatch up to Albany, on the first 
news of the descent of the French and Indians on the coun- 
try of the Mohocks, gained him the esteem both of the 
public and our Indian allies. The express reached New 
York on the 12th of February, at ten o'clock in the night, 
and in less than three days he embarked with three hun- 
dred volunteers. The river, which was heretofore very un- 
common at that season, was open, and he landed at Albany, 
and arrived at Schenectady on the 17th of the month ; 
but still too late to be of any other use than to strengthen 
the ancient alliance. The Indians, in commendation of his 
activity on the occasion, gave him the name of Cayengui- 
rago, or the great swift arrow." A name expressive of the 
speed with which he flew to the relief and succor of his 
friends and allies ; what an honorable memorial ! The cor- 
poration of our city, in July thereafter, presented " an ad- 
dress of thanks to him for the great care he had taken for 
the security of the province ; and also a cup of gold, as a 
token of their gratitude to their majesties, for ap])ointing a 
person of so great vigilance, prowess, and conduct, to rule 
over us." 

We must admit him to have been stout of heart, and if 
correct in judgment, correct to perceive the extent of it, 
and, of course, further correct, free from pretensions be- 
yond it, and then, rarely otherwise than correct to discern 
w^hat is fit and commendable, and so, ultimately correct 
both in opinion and conduct throughout, another compli- 
ment awaited him far more grateful. On a subsequent 
occasion, they attribute " to his prudence, that all their late 
heats and animosities are healed." The governor, the 
guide, the guardian, the father of the people, healing their 
heats and animosities ! how suitablj'', how worthily, occu- 
pied ! the " civil discord" known as the troubles in Leislcrs 
time, " the heats and animosities" intended — unhappy Leis- 
ler ! made to suffer for treason, and his heart at the time 
filled with affectionate loyalty to his prince, William of 
Orange, emphatically of glorious memory, a deliverer of 
Europe at the period from the ambition of a ruler of the 
French, Lewis of Bourbon, the fourteenth of the name, as- 
piring at the empire of it universally, and for which his 



Benson's memoir. 43 

people, in their own vanity, and to gratify his, surnamed 
him Great. 

The Lange Rack, the Long Reach, the reach from Polle- 
PEL Island to the short turn in the river, the Krom Elleboog ; 
the first syllable retained, and the last translated, its pre- 
sent name, the Crom Elbow. Lepel is ^ spoon — aPoLLEPEL 
a ladle, and particularly the one with a short handle for 
beating the batter for the wafel ; the resemblance of the 
island to the convex side of the bowl of the ladle, the ori- 
gin of the name : a point in the long reach Danse Kamer, 
dancing chajnher, still retaining its name. 

WiLTvvYCK, the Dutch name for the town of Kingston — 
literally Wildwich, or Indianwich. The Dutch built a re- 
doubt on the bank of the creek, at the landing, and thence 
the creek known as Redout Kill, corrupted to Rundout 
Kill. A second company of Walloons, consisting of twelve 
families, came over very early, and settled on the southern 
branch of the REDOLfT Kill, and from them called the 
Waale Kill, corrupted to Wallkill ; their settlement is re- 
ferred to in an ancient grant as the Frenchmen's Land — 
they gave it the name of the Paltz, the Palatinate, having 
probably taken refuge there in the first instance : the two 
islands in the river, Magdalen Island, and Slypsteen, Grind- 
stone, Island, retain their Dutch names ; the point project- 
ing from the east shore towards the last, its Dutch name 
RooDE HoECK, translated, Redhook — the creek, Roelof Jan- 
sen's Kill, retaining its Dutch name ; as does also the creek 
on the opposite side of the river, the Cat's Kill. The fol- 
lowing circumstances, may perhaps serve for a probable 
conjecture whence the name of the first of these two creeks 
— Jan, John, and Roelof, some have supposed Ralph, very 
common Christian names ; and accordingly, not unusual for 
a number to pass by the combination of the latter, with the 
patronymic from the former, Roelof Janse, and the true 
surname never noticed — among those the subjects of the 
usage, was a Roelof Jansen, overseer of the Orphan Cham- 
ber, and so named in the public records, even when men- 
tioned of him in reference to his trust. His widow, in 
1038, married to Do/nine Everardus Bogardus, the first 
minister who came over from Holland, and sent by the 
West India Company, they claiming to be the Patrons of 
the Churches in the Colony ; the term used in the English 
law sense, entitled to present the preacher. The Dutch 
called our Catamount, or Panther, at times, Het Catlos, but 
more generally Het Cat, emphatically the Cat; it is also 



44 Benson's memoir. 

their name for the domestic cat, except when to distinguish 
the male, and which is then called the kater ; and hence, 
mistaking the origin of the name, a branch of it has re- 
ceived the name of the Kater's Kill. The island between 
Cats Kill and Hudson, under the east shore of YastricliS 
Island, so called after Garret Vastrick. 

Hbt Klauver Rack, the Clover Reach — the Reach at 
Hudson — the Bluffs, or terminations of the hills there, on 
the east side of the river, called by the Dutch the Klauvers, 
the Clovers, from their resemblance, it is said, to the clover, 
but whether to the leaf or the flower, different opinions. 
Beeren Island and the Overslagh, still retaining their Dutch 
names. 1 he Dutch navigators speak of the river Gambia, 
on the coast of Africa, as having an Overslagh, a bar, at 
its mouth. 

A few were selected from the crews of the Dutch ships 
which sailed up the river the following year after the dis- 
covery of it, to remain here a winter over. They erected 
an habitation on the point of the island, the southern limit 
of the city of Albany, and enclosed it with pallisadoes as a 
defence against the Indians, and it w^as known as the Kas- 
teel, the Castle. Stuy vesant, in his correspondence with the 
government of the Massachusetts Bay, mentions the island 
as still known by the name of Kasteel Island. 

Albany was known by the several Dutch names of Be- 
VERWYCK, Willemstadt, and Fort Orange, chiefly by the last. 
It was also known as the Fuyck, or Hoop-net ; and a kill is 
mentioned as there, and known as the Fuyck Kill, changed 
to RuTTEN Kill, an abbreviation of Rutgert's Kill, Rutgert 
Bleecker, a proprietor of the ground adjacent to it, the 
third creek from the Norman's Kill inclusive ; the creek, 
known as the Vyde Kill, t\\e fifth creek, the creek at water 
vleit, literally, at the time, water food, the word vleit since 
rarely in use, the seat of the family of Van Rensselaer. 
The lands immediately opposite to Albany, and for a dis- 
tance along, and from the river, the Dutch denoted as Het 
Greene Bosch, the pine woods, corrupted to Greenhush. The 
mouths of the Mohock they distinguished as the Spruyten, 
corrupted to, and which may also possibly pass for a trans- 
lation, the Sprouts. The larger island formed by the Sprouts, 
they called Walvisch Island, Whale Island. " I cannot for- 
bear," says Van Der Donck, "to mention, that in the ^-ear 
1G47, in the month of March, when, by a great freshet, the 
water was fresh almost to the great bay, there were two 
whales, of tolerable size, up the river, the one turned back, 



Benson's memoir. 45 

but the other stranded, and stuck not far from the great fall 
of the Cohoes." The arable land immediately above, they 
denoted as the Halve Maax, the half 7110011, from its crescent- 
like form along the hills on the western side. Tiie river 
from the rapids upwards, and for the distance of about 
twelve miles, the Indians denominated a Jake, the Dutch 
Het Stille Water, the still water. The name of the Island 
of St. Bartholomew, in the West Indies, now generally ab- 
breviated to St. Barts, so the Dutch Bartholomeus, abbre- 
viated to the first syllable, pronounced Bat, and sometimes 
to the two last syllables, pronounced as if one, Mees.— 
B\rtholomeus Van Hoogeboom, the first who settled on the 
river above the Still Water ; from his name, the two names 
of Batten Kill and Meesen Kill. 

ENGLISH NAMES OF PLACES. 

Few of them ancient. The island in the bay. Love Island, 
now Bedlow's Island. NicoUs granted it to Needham, and 
he within a few days thereafter parted with it to Alderman 
Isaac Bedlow. HalletCs Cove on the East river— the first 
of the family must have possessed lands there to some ex- 
tent, as we find the island beyond Hellgate, now Riker's 
Island, called Halletes Island. The two islands near it, the 
Brothers their Dutch name the Gesellen, translated. The 
larcre rocks at the entrance of Hellgate, the larger one the 
Mm Rock, the other the Hancock Rock. Frog's Neck— 
Throgmorton, an Englishman, took a grant for it under the 
Dutch, 1G43; the name abbreviated from ThrogJiiorton s to 
Throw's, and finally corrupted to Frog's, Neck. The Step- 
»i/i/^ Stones, rocks projecting in aline from the Long-Island 
shore into the Sound, and their tops bare at low water. 
An Indian origin is asserted for this name, and a tradition 
vouched as the authority, heretofore repeated by our Suf- 
folk county men, to their neighbors of Connecticut over the 
way, in retort for the jeer from them, that the .oil of the 
eastern part of the island is so poor as to be made to pro- 
duce only meagre hills of Indian corn, and it constituting 
the chief food of the inhabitants, not uncommon, in a calm 
time, to hear the samp mortars a-going, quite across the 

Sound. ^ , , 1 

It is said that at a certain time,* doubtless some ages 
ago, the evil spirit set up a claim against the Indians, to 

* See Note XVL 



46 Benson's memoir. 

Connecticut, as his peculiar domain ; but they, being in 
possession, determined, of course, to try to hold it. By Con- 
necticut, the premises in question, is to be understood the 
original Connecticut proper, the territory between the oblong, 
our eastern boundary in that quarter, and the kSound ; for 
had it been known to the parties, but which indeed was not 
found out by the whites themselves for the first hundred 
years after they succeeded to the occupancy, that Connec- 
ticut was capable of being rolled or stretched out the whole 
breadth of the continent, there would have been no need of 
strife between them ; there would have been land amply to 
satisfy both, and scores of millions of acres to spare. The 
surfaces of Connecticut and Long-Island were then the re- 
verse of what they are now. Long-Island was covered 
with rocks; Connecticut was free from them. The Indians 
were fully sensible of what they had to dread from such 
an adversary, and accordingly betook themselves to a course, 
not unusual on occasions of great difficulty and danger, 
they referred the case to the squaws, the mothers of the 
tribes, who, it is said, recommended an offer to quit on be- 
ing allowed for their betterments — a Novanglican law term, 
devised to signify the dwelling, and other erections, and 
comprehending girdling the trees to disencumber the land 
of the wood, by a person entering without title on land 
never before cultivated, known as new, or wild, land, and 
for Avhich he considers the rightful owner, whenever he 
shall appear, bound to allow him according to their value, 
to be assessed by a jury of the same place, before he him- 
self bound to quit ; on a principle, a kind of corollary from 
the rule, that it is oppressive and unjust that one should 
reap and another have sown, and so it is unjust and 
oppressive that one should inhabit, and another have built. 
No answer, as was to be expected, was given to this of- 
fer ; and the parties, claiming to be entitled to the rights 
of sovereign States, and there being no federal court to in- 
terpose between them, had recourse to the " ultimate means 
of discussion between princes," to arms. Indeed, had there 
been a court, it is to be doubted whether they could have 
been brought to be amenable to it. 

As to the party defendant, the Indian — the man of the 
Wood; a wigwam of bark his habitation, and the skins of 
the beasts, he tracks or entraps, furnishing his coat and his 
couch; and, to repeat it as expressed by himself, "to divide 
the land, each to have a separate and permanent property in 
his plantation, would be to make him as bad as a white man.^* 



Benson's memoir. 47 

His subsistence — in seasons the return of the inhabitants 
of the pool from the torpor ot winter, to furnish his mess, an 
annunciation to him of a respite from starving. His hos- 
pitaUty— the mere effect of all things in common ; and the 
aged Sachem, when unable to crawl and partake in the 
wigwam of another, left to starve in his own. His fight- 
ing^ cowardly ; rarely, at the same moment, exposing him- 
seFf erect in posture and uncovered by a tree, and roasting 
a prisoner alive, festivity ; hence, whence urged to war. 
With him blood for blood, and the tomahawk has been put 
into the hand of the widow to avenge the blood of the 
slain husband. " The native force of his mind unaided, his 
manners unsoftened, and consequently left fierce ;" in a 
word, a savage. The notices on his mind of the duty of 
rendering to another his own, very faint, if any ; of an au- 
thorized means to enforce it, none.* 

I am aware that I am here differing from one among us 
of celebrity for literature and science, and of whom I have 
presumed to be a follower, with however unequal pace, in 
the humble task I have assigned myself, to prepare notes, 
or collect materials, for the history of the State, the place 
of my birth and residence, for the benefit of whoever will 
undertake the principal work, the history itself. The pas- 
sage alluded to, in the volume he has favored us with, reads 
thus : " If it were made a question, whether no law as 
among the savage Americans, or too much, as among 
the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greatest 
evil? one, who hath seen both conditions of existence, 
would pronounce it to be the last, and that the sheep are 
happier qf themselves, than under the care of the wolves." 
Now I am quite willing to allow him his premises, and in 
the utmost latitude he may wish, that the people are sheep, 
the leader breaking into mischief, the rest follow, and, it 
is said, to precipitating down a well ; and. in reference to 
the particular immediately before us, wholly incapable to 
take care of themselves, and that the administrators of the 
government are wolves. Will it not then be happier for the 
sheep to employ dogs to take care of them? No; for in the 
same pages where we read of ravening wolves, we read of 
greedy dogs. Will it not be the least evil, on the whole, 
for the social flock to leave the " sweet tender grazings of 
the field," betake themselves to the dank wilderness, and 
there separate each one to become 'solitary 1 More stren- 

* See Noie XVII. 



48 Benson's memoir. 

uously, no ; for whether for no law, and so for less evil and 
more happiness, or for Jess or more any thing else, what- 
ever it may b^. I do not care, I utterly deny man has a right 

to turn HEATHEX. 

As to the other high litigant party ; his hostility to courts 
of justice is notorious, especially where the judges are 
learned, distinguishing, upright, undaunted, revered ; they 
frequently thwart him in some of his best projects ; where 
they are oi a different character, illiterate, and ignorant, 
and so in proj.ortion, either conceited or stupid, or without 
probity, but with its usual concomitant, a consciousness of 
without reputation for it, and so either showing assurance 
or betraying cowardice, there he not only tolerates the court, 
he gives it all his countenance and help, because their un- 
principled advocates, not to be reckoned among the least 
profitable of his servants, can, unoverrided, by confounding 
truth and error, right and wrong, play his part as efiectu- 
ally to subserve his purposes, as if played immediately by 
himself 

The parties foreseeing there would be war, were, as be- 
hooved them, prepared for it. 

The renowned arch-leader, an host in himself, took the 
field alone ; and, being an overmatch for the Indians in skill 
and spirit, he at first advanced on them ; but they having 
provided there should be constantly reinforcements on their 
march, thereby preserving their corps entire, and harassing 
him incessantly, giving him no rest night or day. he was 
obliged finally to j'ield to vigilance and perseverance, and 
fall back : he retired collected, and, as usual, giving up the 
ground only inch by inch, and, though retiring, still pre- 
senting a front wherever attack threatened ; he kept close 
to the Sound to secure his flank on that side ; and having 
reached Frog's Point, and the waters becoming narrow, to 
be crossed by the Indians in bark canoes, easily to be made 
in a night, and the tide being out, and the rocks show- 
ing their heads, he availed himself of them, and, stepping 
from one to another, effected his retreat to Long Island. 
He at first betook himself, sullen and silent, to Coram, in the 
middle of the island ; but it being in his nature not to remain 
idle long, and " rage superadded, soon roused him and minis- 
tered to him the means of revenge." He collected all the rocks 
on the island in heaps at Cold Spring, and, throwing them 
in different directions to different distances across the Sound 
on Cd*imecticut, covered the surface of it with them, as we 
now see it ; and it has been repeated from the whites, the 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 



49 



first settlers of the lands at Cold Spring, that the Indians, 
to the last ^^ho remained, not only undertook to show the 
spot where he stood, but insisted they could still discern the 
])rint of his feet. Whether he has ever visited Connecticut 
since, not known ;* if so, it must have been in some bor- 
rowed form, and his stay short, for we must certainly ac- 
knowledge that no State in the Union can compare with 
her for a steady habitual effort, to keep the demon out. 

If this traditioi be believed by the Indians, it serves to 
give us some notion of their geology. Are these rocks al- 
luvial ? Whoever has seen them will pronounce them re- 
sembling every thing more than " the smooth stone of the 
stream." Are they primitive 1 No : they come from Long 
Island. What are they ? Here a defect in the nomencla- 
ture ; happily the " Greek and Latin fonts" are at hand to 
supply it. Well for our science we have some literature 
among us to draw on for names. 

The English gave to the river the name of Hudson's 
river, by way of continual claim, he being of English hirth. 
The Dutch insisted that being in their employ, and ex- 
pressly to explore, he was, as a discoverer, to be considered 
as theh- subject, and the case of Columbus a precedent ; he 
a native of Genoa, and the king of Spain taking to himself 
the benefit of his discoveries, and none of the European 
powers gainsaying it. Nay, they seem wholly to have 
overlooked their own case ; their sovereign, James I. having 
prior to the voyage of Hudson, " granted all the lands along 
the coast of North America between the 34th and 45th 
degrees of latitude, and one hundred miles into the country, 
to his subjects the patentees of the North and South Vir- 
ginia Patents ;" he claiming it by the discoveries of the 
Venetian Cabots. 

The colony and its metropolis, called after the Duke's 
English title, Neiv York; Ulster county, called after his 
Irish title; King's and Queen's counties, and Duke and 
Dutchess counties, so called in compliment to Charles and 
his Queen, and to the Duke and his Dutchess; Duke's 
county has passed to Massachusetts ; Richmond county, the 
title of a son of Charles ; Orange county ; then already a 
relationship between the royal family of England and the 
house of Orange in Holland. The town of Hurley, in Ul- 
ster county; the name given to it by Governor Colonel 
Lovelace, his family Barons of Hurley in Ireland. Ver- 



* See Note XVIII. 



50 Benson's memoir. 

mont, Green Mountain, and the town of Amenia, in Dutch- 
ess county, Pleasant, if you please, owe their names to the 
fancy of Young, the poet, I mean the American, not the 
English Young ; he had a peculiar facility in making Eng- 
lish words from Latin ones. In his Poem, the Conquest of 
Quebec, in describing the portents which he feigned to have 
preceded the battle of the Plains of Abraham, and which, 
according to his fiction, appalled the stout heart of Wolfe 
not a little, the first line of one of the couplets, " vulpine 
ululations, ursine growls," and the two concluding words of 
the next, " predicting owls," those which preceded have es- 
caped my memory, and it is not now in my power to recover 
them ; sad fate for an epic ! " scarce twice five lustres past 
and out of print." Williams, who has written a book, 
" The Natural and Civil History of Vermont," makes hon- 
orable mention of him, ranking him among the fathers and 
founders of the State, giving due precedence, however, to 
Ethan Allen. 

ANCIENT NAMES OF STREETS IN THE CITY. 

Pearl street, its Dutch name translated ; certainly the 
most ancient, and originally extending only to Whitehall 
street — the name of the latter from the Whitehall Inn, on 
the west side below Pearl street, the private property of 
Governor Dongan, destroyed by fire, and its ruins referred 
to in a conveyance, 1724. On the east side from Pearl 
street upwards, to at least as far as Stone street, Het Steen 
Straat, perhaps so distinguished as for a time the only one 
paved; the Dutch West India Company had their Pack- 
huysen, warehouses, and that portion of it was known as the 
WiNCKEL-straet, shopping-street of the day ; the ground on 
the west side open, and a market being there, was known 
as the Marktvelt, the Market Field, and hence a passage 
to it from Broad street, the Marktvelt Steegje, Mai'ket- 
Field Lane. The Breeds Weg, the Broad Way, at times 
known by a feodal appellation, the Heere Weg, the hordes 
Way — a branch of it to the North river, Beaver Lane — an 
order, 1656 — " that the ordinary place for casting anchor in 
the North river, be before or near the Beaver Path." Broad 
street, originally a graft, a term signifying a ditch in fort-i 
fication, but, when applied to a street, signifying one with 
a canal in it. While a graft, it was also usually known 
by the feodal appellation, the Heere Graft, Lord's Graft, 
and at times also as the Breede, Broad, Graft ; the canal 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 51 

extending as far as Beaver-street, and there divided into 
two branches, one to the west, the Beever, Beaver Graft, 
now Beaver street, the other to the east, the Prinsen, Prince's, 
Graft, after wards Prince's street, now^ the eastern portion 
of Beaver-street. The Prince's Graft terminated in a 
Sloot, narroiD ditch, and there a landing place for the coun- 
try people coming to market in their canoes, now Sloat- 
Lane — the whole, the Graft and Sloot, ordered to be filled 
up in 1G87, and the street to be levelled and paved. The 
street communicating between the WmcKEL-straet and the 
bridge across the graft, Brugge, Bridge, street. The por- 
tion of Pearl street, from Broad street, or the termination 
of Custom-House street, to at least as far as the first lane 
or alley, known as the Hodge, High, street — the Stadhuys, 
City Hall, in it fronting the slip, and the sheriff, 1G91, or- 
dered to prepare a ducking-stool, intended to deter from 
scolding, a species of excess of freedom of speech, and 
however it might have suited at the time, certainly now, 
according to some late and highly respectable opinions on 
the subject of crime and punishment, a means of restraint 
too rigorous to comport with the mild and free spirit of our 
republican government. The dwelling-house of Coenradt 
Ten Eyck also there, and so the name of the slip Coenties, 
or CoenradCs, Slip — his tannery extending to a lane in the 
rear, and the bark mill being immediately on the lane, the 
English Mill-street, soon supplanted the Dutch Slvk Steeg, 
Mud-lane. The next portion of Pearl street, to Wall street, 
being open to the river, was, like a street in Amsterdam, 
corresponding in situation, called the Cingel ; the term will 
lead to its derivation, and its derivation to its meaning, the 
exterior, or encircling , street — it followed the curvatures of 
the shore, so that when Wall street was laid out from 
Broadway, and, where it approached the river, widened, 
some of the lots, in that part now became bounded by it, 
and hence the name Ciiige I vit times applied to both streets, 
and accordingly lots expressed as situate in the Cingd or 
Wall-street. A line of pallisadoes, and sometimes men- 
tioned as the city-walls, from the one river to the other ; at 
its point on the East river, a work of stone, known as the 
Half-Moon, and " fires for the pitch-pots for vessels per- 
mitted to be made against it ;" its situation in the present 
Water-street somewhere between Wall street and Pine 
street ; the line crossed Broadway, so that, continued, it 
passed not many feet north of the northwestern corner of 
Trinity Church ; there were two gates in it — one in Broad- 



52 Benson's memoir. 

way, distinguished as the Landt Poort, Land-Gate or Port, 
the other at the Half-Moon, on the East river, distinguished 
as the Water Poort, the Water-Gate or Po7-t, and at times, 
and even in grants and otlier documents in English, men- 
tioned as the Strand, or East, Port. An order, as late as 
1679, " that the gates be locked before 9 o'clock, and opened 
at daylight." Adjacent to the Half-Moon was " the Waal, 
or the place where the ships rode at anchor in the East 
river" — doubtless, the place where goods were landed or 
shipped off, and hence the name of the WAAL-straet, very 
early corrupted to TFo/Z-street. 

A marsh, described, sufficiently for our present purpose, 
as extending from the river to the high grounds, the line of 
the rear of the lots on the northern side of Pearl street, be- 
tween Pine and Fulton streets, called Smee's Vly, or De 
Smee's Vly, and therefore uncertain whether the name, or 
occupation, of the person intended. Smithes, or the SmWi^s 
Vly — Vly, an abbreviation of Valey, Valley, and in use with 
the Dutch here to denote a marsh, our salt meadow; when 
the Maagde Padtje, Maidenlane, was continued through to 
the river, and widened below Pearl street for the slip called 
Countess's-slip, in compliment to the lady of the Governor, 
Lord Bellomont, a market was built there, known as the 
Vly Market, the market in the marsh, corrupted to the Fly 
Market; hence, when in the sharp contest heretofore, be- 
tween a New Yorker and a Philadelphian, on the all-im- 
portant question, in which of their respective cities the best 
fare? and the New Yorker would boast of his fish, their 
variety, scores of kinds, their freshness, some even alive 
and gasping in the market, and the fact not to be denied, 
but to avoid the effect of it as triumph, the Philadelphian 
would only, but significantly, remind him, that however 
fresh his fish might be, the fesh he ate during the summer 
months not quite free from taint, for that from the swarms 
of the insect in the principal market it was called emphati- 
cally the i^///-Market ; the poor New Yorker, ignorant of the 
Dutch language and of the etymologies from it, and hence 
knowing no better than that it was the true name of the 
market, left without a reply, left to experience what no one 
can know who has not experienced it, to be obliged in a dis- 
putation to give uj) the 'point. 

Croivn-street, laid out in 1694; for a number of years 
the only street leading from the Broadway to the North 
river — lately changed to Liberty street. American Liberty, 



Benson's memoir. 53 

the liberty of the revolution,* an original liberty ; English 
liberty ; " 7iot to be bound by any laws to which we do not, by 
our representatives, consent, and the representatives jmvileged 
to originate whatever laws they -please ;'^ all beyond it, growth, 
natural it will be admitted, from the independence on our 
indigenous stock of eqiiality of condition. The Roman Pi- 
leus, the cap, the emblem of a derived liberty, a liberty the 
gift from one to another legally in servitude to him ; if, how- 
ever, with a half disgraceful unacquaintance with our own 
liberty, its origin and its nature, we will still have the Cap 
the emblem of it, then it was not unwittingly observed at the 
time, that, instead of Liberty-street, the change would have 
been more apt from Crown, to Cap, street. 

Gold-street — the Dutch called the hill there, the Gouden 
Bergh, Golden Hill ; Cliff street, called after Dirk Van Der 
Cliff; Beekman, and William, streets, after Alderman Wil- 
liam Beekman; John-street, after John Harpendingh, the 
donor to the Dutch congregation of their grounds in the 
neighborhood ; his escutcheon in their church in William 
street, Dey-street, after Dij^k Dey ; PFrt?-rew-street, so called 
in compliment to the lady of Sir Peter Warren, a native of 
the city. 

We have seen Coenradt Ten Eyck, from his residence 
there, giving name to a slip ; in like manner. Friend Edward 
Bui'ling, gave name to Bnrling's-s\ip, and Benjamin Peck, to 
Peck's-s\\\), and Pieter Roos to the Fly-market, Pieter Roos's 
Markt, Peter Rosens Market, being the name by which it 
was at first, and continued for some time, to be known. — 
He was my father's mother's father ; his father Gerrit 
Janse rjoos— there are circumstances from M^hich it may be 
inferred the father of Gerrit came over, and, if so, I now 
see in my family the ninth generation from the first Dutch 
<5olonist ancestor, females of a mature age, and probably 
the intervening period not exceeding a century and an half 
— nine generations in a century and a half, not common. 
The motive with me for mentioning this fact, and I per- 
suade myself others will be persuaded I have none other, 
is, that it may be received as doctrinal, and the improvement 
of it by our Ccelebses,-\ to show the advantage of the ear- 
liest search for a wife. If the name Peter Rose's Market 
had been continued hitherto, so as to have become suffi- 
cient for the intendment he was the founder of it, I think I 
might then have ventured to challenge any "American 

*See Note XIX. t See Note XX. 



54 Benson's memoir. 

Bourbon or Nassau to go higher." I should at least be on 
a par with old Witham Marsh, clerk of the city and county 
of Albany, who died here about fifty years ago, his grave- 
stone to be still seen in Trinity church-yard, his name on it 
in law Latin, Withamus De Marisco, the rest of the inscrip- 
tion in other Latin, and purporting " that by his father's 
mother's side he was most nobly born ;" the whole by the 
direction of his will ; also among the waj^s by which a man 
may bequeath something to himself, something to save his 
name /rowi beiiig forgotten. 

DUTCH NAMES FOR THE FISH IN OUR RIVER. 

A few only will be noticed — some denoted by 7iumhers as 
their navies — the Twaalf, the twelve, the Streaked Bass, and 
the Elf, the Shad — the name of the Shad in Dutch is Elft, 
in German Aloft, and in French A lose, all perhaps from 
the same root ; but being pronounced here Elf, the number 
eleven, the number itself possibly came to be considered as 
its name, and so led to denote others in the same manner 
— the Drum is said to have been the Dertien, the thirteen. 
Van Der Donck, speaking of the North river, expresses 
himself, it is " seer visryck," literally very Jish-rich — here 
the Dutch language would seem to have the advantage 
over the English, its capability of composition — het gelt- 
zucHT, the money-lust ; het heerscfi-zucht, the sway-lust; for 
a word for the first the English are indebted to the French, 
covetousness ; for a word lor the other to the Latin, ambi- 
tion; Myn Eer-naam, my honor-name, the name, or rather 
appellation, by which it is peculiarly my honor to be called 
— no word for it in either of the three languages — an in- 
stance illustrating it — " The disciples were called Chris- 
tians." Speaking of the fish in New Netherland at large, 
and consequently comprehending the Connecticut, he ex- 
presses himself, " there is also in some places salmon." — 
Extract from the voyage of Hudson, as found in Purchas; 
*' they saw many salmons, and mullets, and rays, very great" 
— the third of September, not the salmon season. De Laet 
expresses himself, " Hudson also testifies, that with their 
seines they took every kind of river-fish in the river, also 
young salmon and sturgeon." The Dutch, whatever may 
be the true name of the fish in their language, always, at 
least in this country, call the ti'out, Salmiies, little salmon ; 
and they were doubtless in abundance at the mouths of the 
large streams issuing into the river. Belknap, and as a. fact 



Benson's memoir. 55 

appertaining to the life of Hudson, mentions, "that, in sail- 
ing up the river, he found it abounding with fish, and among 
wliich were great store of salmon ;" this instance of a little 
wandering however excepted, we must do the reverend bi- 
ographer the justice, that in the main he sticks duly close to 
his text ; and farther, that he is concise, both in his narra- 
tive and in his reflections ; and if he possessed the same 
quality as a preacher, perhaps not the least commendable 
in him, for we all know there is nothing so soon apt to tire 
us as a long sermon — I preaching against long preaching ! 
Am I aware my practice counter to my precept, and that 
the latter of little effect without the former ? I yield to my 
own admonition — I close. If I have been too verbose, our 
historian has provided the apology for me, " the indefeasi- 
ble right of my profession, founded on immemorial usage." 
If I have said much, not much to the piirpose, I prescribe for 
the same privilege here also. My object, as already de- 
clared, was to save the names of some places in our coun- 
try from the tooth of TuijiG-eating time — that the memory 
of them will now be perpetual, I am not entitled even to 
hope — let it cease ; still " may our country itself be per- 
petual." May this be with me, as it was with the " illustri- 
ous and excellent person" whom I cite, " among my expiring 



END OF THE MEMOIR, 



NOTES. 



The Notes were chiefly, soon after the publication of the Memoir, in 1817, as 
will be perceived from No. I., and others, have since been, and those denoted 
suppletory, recently interleaved, in manuscript, facing the pages containing the 
passages to which they refer. No. T. itself, however, and No. II., having a gen- 
eral reference to the Memoir, were inserted between the blank leaves preceding 
the title-page. — Adv. to second edition, printed in 1825. 



No. I. 



mea nemo 



Scripta legat. ob banc rem. 

Quod sunt, quos genus hoc niinime juvat, utpote plures 
Culpari dignos." 

When the Memoir was read, a vote of thanks, and an appointment of a com- 
mittee to obtain a copy for publication, followed, as matters of course. In conse- 
quence of my absence in Albany the remainder of the winter, the copy was not 
furnished until in the spring ; and, from intervening occurrences, the publication 
was further delayed. On the I2th of August, the publication still remain- 
ing to be commenced, the Society passed a resolution recalling the vote of 
thanks, unless I would submit the Memoir to a committee, to expunge 
from it in their discretion. I cannot bring myself to think so meanly of their 
understandings, as to suppose they were not sensible, at the time, that so far 
from acceding to the profier, I should forbear from noticing it, further than in- 
stantly to withdraw myself from them. I mention, in the Memoir, " that the 
subject furnishes little to please, perhaps less to instruct." The obnoxious pas- 
sages have never been specified ; circumstances, however, if the case merited it, 
could be mentioned, from which it might, with tolerable certainty, be guessed 
they were among those designed for instruction. It obviously ought not to be 
unflattering to me ; they have been, and from only being once heard, when read, 
remembered and pondered for a full half year. I have understood it is held 
among physicians, that the longer the draught, pill, or bolus (and my Memoir, 
perhaps, something not unlike a compound of all three,) is retained, the better, 
if effect is finally produced, and the more violent the effect, the more they con- 
clude the drug to have been genuine. 

The intent of the above, is to explain whence the publication of the Memoir, 
and not the vote of thanks, or even denoting myself a member of the Society. 
/ interleaved a few copies of the first impression of it, designed (or particular 
distribution, with notes, in manuscript ; none of them, however, as will be per- 
ceived, tending to vary the import of a single sentence in the text, which, as it 
is to be my Memorial, must ever remain the same as read. 



Benson's memoir. — notes. »' 

No. II. 



Th. Me^ir is ,0 be con. .e,;ed a, a piece ., ,,.<»»..«;;.. i;^,;*"^-: 
professed, iVamp.t, to serve omy as the r aip toi ^"e lu 

Ln,pare small things wUh great. ,t, the --- ^ J^eCuK s-ot^ppe^ 
websters had, probably, the like icarp ;-- ,^ 'V^f,;''' " j^ dVei,,,d her victorious." 

"^S:Ji:^Sn^'a:;;i::r:;::ld?:n -t^ the tin.e aHowea fbr ^i^-;^- 

ev^ variously 4^x'l;;:;Sortnt::r3;;;;S;srs;eed i:^ 

rZ:::r:::i ^ s'^t -ct^d t" IneJe Utances, or examples to aid^im. 
rllatio's .0 others disposed to a farther or more parucular -J^-- '^^ J° ; ^J 
with a sarins from the imputations of a vanity in the hist expression 
sentence, I had to make it a multum m parvo. 



No. III.— Page 80. 



. 1 / „ r>. T not nnd Van Der Donck, and from others, 

From the passages cited f'-°"^D^,L''^:J ^J^\;tes and although some are not 

relative to i. briefly ";'-^/;7^^^;J7,f,U^^^,f be ollected tlie history of the 

^^er;^ .:rc:ur '^ a;?Ccir::::i'tl-ccupancy and settlement of it 

bytSat least as much of it, very probably, as is worth research. 



]Sfo. IV.— Page 83. 



Petrus Stuyvesant was the last of the Governors of the Colony, under the 
r.t.h He arrived in 1647, and the records of his administration are du.y 
Dutch. He arrivea in lo^/, a tt^ ^_„ .f.i.p profession of arms, and had 

;:ri wL»- e ° -he beufglei, dread, no. unlike .hem Hi. .kill or cxpe- 

S'r:rlhr^;r.rri.r:i.wr=....* 

TtiS ni, e 1 n'ndred in.mded i.uo .he •»»".''°'',''"°''''°f,,'iff SSo7.he" 
paTed ;„ rece.ve .l.em .hey, after a g," »J-J^"™' ^ . ',:'',,U°'„*'X°We° 
governinen., dar.ng th= period f"^'™'""/;'^,^'^'',;.,,, ar.ned ; and .he in- 

SEEE-^ieSia:!^S^;^^taS;ri;^^o?s 

Fnlland we e a source of disquietude and perplexity to him. In one of his 
England, weie a sour Company, cited by our historian, he e.x- 

l^es'eVhim e " Y u h tgVne the troubles in England will prevent any attempt 
presses himbeU . i o ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ . ^,^,, ^^,.6 able, with- 

out^ a^; Tsstt^nt io'Sr-;: us of the country when they please ; and their 

8 



58 



BENSON S MEMOIR. NOTES. 



demands, encroachments, and usurpations, give the people great concern, — the 
right to both rivers, by purchase and possession, being our own, without dispute." 
This indicates not only his suspicions, but a settled apprehension in hiin, that 
they meditated, ultimately, to wrest from the Dutch the whole of their posses- 
sions here ; and the difficulty of his situation was increased by the reflection, 
that the case apparently admitted of no rule of compromise or concessions. 
Indeed, if there were, he had little to hope from good disposition in them ; on 
the contrary, in the correspondence between him and them, they coarsely, and 
as if with design to anger, apply the appellation ot intruders to the Dutch ; he, 
however, hesitated not a moment to retort it on them in terms. The Connecti- 
cut men at one time charged him, not only wiih instigating tlie Indians to it, 
but even with an intended personal agency as an accomplice with them, in a 
plot to massacre all the whites in their colony, and the writer of their history 
gives the outrageous calumny as a fact in his narrative. They certainly ought, 
at least, to have supposed for him that he had read his Bible, and heeded its con- 
tents ; so that "before going to make war against them, he would have sat 
down and consulted, whether he were able, with his One, to meet them coming 
against him with their Ten." The Director, or Governor, and his Council, 
were a court ot justice in the last resort ; and in ciimiiial cases, highly penal, they 
had both original and exclusive jurisdiction. It was not unusual with them, 
when difJering, to give their opinions seriatim, and m writing, and which were 
entered at large in their journal. Those by Stuyvesant, show him to have been 
deliberate and impartial in his inquiries, distinct in his perceptions, and by no 
means uninformed respecting the principles of criminal jurisprudence. Undaunt- 
ed — firm; never abating of steadfastness in his purposes; vigilant, not a 
moment without heed : and unceasmg in his care for the protection, and other- 
wise tor the welfare of those in charge to iiiin. His administration, perhaps his 
life throughout, at no time at variance with just principle and sound sense. Iti 
fine, the whole of the duties of the trust, and the whole of Ids character consider- 
ed, it may be questioned whether the chief magistracy, among us, has ever been 
confided to an individual more adequate to it, or of more worth. 

No. v.— Page 91. 

That the French, instead of landing at Mallebarre, to abide there, or pursuing 
their voyage farther, did di.scern it more eligible to return to Port Royal, and, so 
discerning, did return, to be ascribed to Providence, to the Deitv ; such His 
purpose, and the mind and will of man subservient to it. What this doctrine ? 
May it not challenge denial ? K admitted, what not the conclusion ? 

No. VI.— Page 91. 

The present Constitution — for the thitherto received jnst federal exposition of 
it, as to the sovereignty of the State Governments in their relation to the sove- 
reignty of the General Government ; the following extract f om a note from the 
Commissioners on tlie part of New Yoik to those on the part of New Jersey, in 
the conferences between them, 1807, relative to the jurisdiction of the Hudson, 
where it flows between the two States. New .Tersey, insisting as one ground of 
claim to it, to the middle of the channel ; New York, having always exercised it to 
the shore on the New Jersey side — that she was an independent soiiere/^w State. 
The extract: — "New Jersey was always an independent sovereign State, as 
against New York, both de facto and de jure ; and, on the principle of the 
American Revolution, she was always so de jure. as against Great Britain, with 
this exception, that the Prince possessing the British crown for the time being, 
was her sovereign, entiiled to, and exercising, the like powers and prerogatives 
as in Great Britain ; and of consequence, in whom the supreme executive power 
was vested, and to whom, as possessing especially the ftcial powers, as they are 
sometimes termed, the powers of peace and war, the duty of allegiance was 



Benson's memoir — notes. 59 

due ; with whose concmrent agency in her legislature, she coiiIJ " raise armies, 
maintain navies, reguhiie commerce and navigation, lay and collect duties on 
imports and exports, and tonnage on vessels, naturalise foreigners, coin monies," 
and assert and vindicate her rights as to her boundaries, and which she actually 
did, as to her northern boundaries. Except the last, however, all the rights or 
powers here enumerated, the /«(fyc?a of sovereignty, she has, equally with the 
State of New York and every oihpr State in the Union, delegated or ceded to 
the general sovereignty of the United States, and is now perhaps more to be 
likened to a corporation with certain powers, none more plenary than that of 
life and death for breaches of her own internal peace ; and is no otherwise in- 
dependent, than as she holds such powers independent of the general sovereignty, 
hut still, in a sense, at the will of the legislatures or conventions of ihiee-fourths 
of the States." 

Note — Suppletory to the above. 

The legislature of Virginia. February, 1786, proposed to the States a Conven- 
tion of Commissioners, to meet at Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, " to 
consider how far an unitorm system, in their commercial intercourse and regula- 
tions, might be necessary to their common interest and permanent hannony ; 
and to report an act relative to this great object, which, when ratified, would 
enable the United States in Congress assembled, effectually to provide for the 
same." The measure being approved, the legislature of this State appointed their 
Commissioners, Messrs. Duane,Gansevoort. R. C. Livingston, Hamilton, and me. 
Mr. Gansevoort wholly declined the appointment ; and, when the time for the 
Convention to assemble approached, Mr. Duane gave notice to his colleagues of 
indisposition, and Mr. Livingston of a probable detention by business for some 
days, at least. I was attorney- general, and, at the time, in Albany, attending 
the Supreme Court, and it became doubtful whether the public business would 
not detain me. A casual conversation between the late Mr. Jus'.ice Hobart and 
me, the intended Convention the subject, terminated in a conclusion that the 
present opportunity for obtaining a Convent'on to revise the whole of our mode 
or system of general government, by confederation or league, ought not to be 
suffered to pass ; that I should consign over the business of the court to some 
friend to conduct it for me ; proceed to New York, and communicate to Mr. 
Hamilton what had passed between us; which I did, and he instantly concur- 
ring, we set out for Annapolis, where we found Commissioners from New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. Here the same being substantially re- 
peated, and there being the like instantaneous concurrence, a committee was 
appointed to prepare an address to the States, which was reported and agreed 
to ; the whole in the course of not exceeding three or four days, and we separat- 
ed. The draft was by Mr. Hamilton, although not formally one of the commit- 
tee. It is to be found printed in Carey's American Museum for April, 1787 ; 
and concludes " with a suggestion by the Commissioners, with the most respect- 
ful deference, of their sincere conviction, that it might essentially tend to ad- 
vance the interest of the Union, if the States, by whom they had been respec- 
tively delegated, would concur themselves, and use endeavors to procure the 
concurrence ot the other States, in the appointment of Commissioners to meet 
at Philadelphia, on the second Monday in May, to take into consideration the 
situation of the United States, and to devise such farther provisions as should 
.appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government 
adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Is this entitled to be viewed as the 
origin of the present Constitution ] 

No. VII.— Page 96. 

We have Milton for it, that Sir He was expressly " formed for contemplation 
and valour ;" has not Lady She, as often as she has chosen it, shown herself 
with her " softness and grace," as potently endowed ] 



60 Benson's mkmoir. — notes. 

No. VIIL— Page 102. 
'■ Homo sum, huiiiiini nihil a me alienvim piito." 

I am a Dutchman, and so think nothing which concerns the Dutch, of uncon- 
cern to me. 

Note to a sermon, in conmiemoration of the landing of the New England 
Pilgrims, delivered 22(1 December, 1820, by John Cliester, pastor of the second 
Presbyterian church, in Albany : — 

" It seems to be admitted, that the captain of the ship had been bribed, by 
some interested persons, to land them far north of the place they intended. 
After they had found Cajie Cod, they would have gone to the Hudson, but the 
captain would not proceed, and, in a short time, the severity of the season made 
it impossible." 

I presume it will be conceded to me, that the passages in the Memoir, from 
the historiographer of Connecticut, were utterly unentitled to be otherwise 
noticed than they were ; but the Disccurse to which the note, the subject of the 
present ui tes to the Memoir, is attached, bespeaking the preacher as possessing, 
with ingenuousness of disposition, and courtesy of manners, a correct, cultivated 
tnind, a charge from him is not to pass as unmeriting to be regarded. The 
answer, however, will not be labored. It will consist wholly of extiacts from 
Neal's History of New England, 1722, and Hutchinson's History of the Colony 
of the Massachusetts Bay, 1760, which, with the inferences they will themselves 
suggest, and a few 1 may, for the greater certainty, intimate, will, I confide, 
suffice to undeceive him. 

Extiacts from Neal : — "On the 5th August, 1620, both ships, the Speedwell, 
of 60 tons, and the May Flower, of 180 t(ms, sailed in company from Southamp- 
ton for New England, but before they got to the Land's End, captain Reynolds, 
master of the Speedwell, complained that his ship was so leaky that he durst 
not venture out to sea in her. Upon which, they put into Dartmouth to have 
her caulked. They then put to sea a second time, but when they had sailed 
about 100 leagues, Mr. Reynolds alarmed the passengers again, telling them he 
should certainly founder at sea if he held on the voyage. So both ships put 
back again into Plymouth, and the Speedwell was dismissed, as unfit for the 
voyage. The whole company, being about 120, were now stowed in one ship, 
which sailed out of Plymouth on the 6th of September, and after a long and 
dangerous voyage, they fell in with the land at Cape Cod, on the 9ih of Novem- 
ber following. Here they refreshed themselves about halt a day ; then tacked to 
the southward for Hudson's river ; but Mr. Jones, the master, had, it seems, been 
bribed by the Hollanders to carry them more to the north, the Dutch inteiuling 
themselves to take possession of these parts, as they did some time after. Instead, 
therefore, of putting out to sea, he entangled among dangerous shoals and break- 
ers, where, meeting with a storm, the ship was driven back again to the Cape ; 
upon which they put into the harbor, and resolved, considering the season of the 
year, to attempt a settlement there, and not proceed forward to the river." 
After speaking of the attempt, by Sir Richard Grenville, to plant a colony at 
Roanoke Island, in 1585, and which finally failed, he concludes the passage, that 
"several other attempts were made in the Queen's time toward a settlement in 
these parts, but they all miscarried." 

Extracts from Hutchinson : — " Gosnold, an Englishman, made a voyage, in 
1602, to that part of North America since called New England, and landed on 
the eastern coast, in about 43 degrees nortli latitude, and it is not certain any 
European had been there before him. " He landed on one of the Elizabeth 
Islands, and gave them that name, in honor of Queen Elizabeth, and built a fort, 
and intended a settlement on the island or on the continent near it, but could 
not persuade his people to remain there, and they all returned to England before 
winter." •' King James, in 1606, claiming the territory, by the discovery of the 
Cabots, granted all the continent of North America, from 34 to 45 degrees, 
which he divided into two colonies, viz : the southern, or Virginia, to certain 
merchants of London ; and the northern, or New England, to begin at the 40th 



BENSON S MEMOIR. 



61 



degree." " Pophain and others, patentees of the northern colony, began a set- 
tlement at Sagadoc: and the next year those which survived the winter, return- 
ed to England, their design of a plantation being at an end." " Whether Britain 
would have had any colonies in America at this day, if religion had not been 
the grand inducement, is doubtful. One hundred and twenty years had passed 
from the discovery of the northern continent by the Cabots, without successful 
attempts; and after repeated attempts had failed, it seemed less probable that 
any should undertake such an affair, than it would have been if no such attempt 
had ever been made." 

" Persecution drove one Mr. Robinson and his Church from England to Hol- 
land." " In 1617, they began to tnink of removing to America." " The Dutch 
labored to persuade them to so to Hudson's riner, and settle under their IVest 
India Conipani/, hut they had not lost their affections for the English, and 
chose to be under their government and protection." " Some of the chiefs of 
them addressed the King, to grant them liberty in religion, under the great seal, 
which he refu-ed." " They laid aside the design for that year." 

" In 1619, they renewed their application, and resolved to venture, though they 
could not have a special grant from the KiuLS of liberty of conscience." " In July, 
16i20, the principal of them went over to South Hampton, where the ships were 
ready to take them on board." " They sailed the beginning of August, but were 
obliged repeatedly to put back, and leave one of their ships behind, with part uf 
their company, at last." 

" They intended for Hudson's river, or the coast near it, but the Dutch had 
bribed their pilot, and he carried them farther northward, so that they fell in 
about Cape Cod, and arrived in that harbor the 11th INovember." " The harbor 
is good, but the country is sandy and barren. This was discouraging, but it was 
too late to put to sea again." E.Ktracts from Hutchinson, in continuation : — " I 
think I may, with singular propriety, call their lives a pilgrimage, ' tantum religio 
potuit suadere.'" " It was about the 8th or 9th November, before they made the 
coast of America, and, falling more to the northward than they intended, they 
made another attempt to sail i'arther southward, but meeting with contrary 
wiiads and hazardous shoals, they were glad to put into the harbor of Cape Cod, 
determined to winter in the most convenient place they could find. This disap- 
pointment svas grievous to them ; hut, before the spring, they considered it as a 
favorable providence ; they were so reduced in the winter by sickness and death, 
they supposed they mast have fallen a prey to the Indians on Hudson's river, 
where they proposed to begin a colony." 

" The master, or pilot, it is said, bribed by the Dutch West India Company, 
had engaged, at all events, not to land them at Hudson's River, but they were 
determined on it, and earlier in the year he would have found it difficult to have 
diverted them." " The whole number, e.xclusive of mariners, amounted to 101 ; 
about one fourth heads of families, and the rest, wives, children, and servants." 
" They came out to seek a vacuum domicilium, (a favourite expression,) in some 
part of the globe where they would, according to their own apprehension, be free 
from the control of European power." 

I assume it, that, from these extracts, there is sufficient, as between the English 
and the other European powers, for the intendment of a dereliction by them, 
previous to the voyage of Hudson, of whatever right Imd accrued by the disco- 
very of the Cabots, at least as it respects the territory westward from Elizabeth 
Islands to the Delaware, and the present purpose requires no more, and conse- 
quently the occupancy of the Dutch, rightful. 

The historians furnish no authority for the charge of the bribe, nor even an in- 
timation how this " thing of darkness was brought to light." The two captains, 
doubtless, before their departure from Southampton, agreed on a rendezvous on 
the coast, in the event of separating on the passage ; hence they must alike have 
been " participants in the crime." One of them finally staid behind. Did he, to 
disburthen his conscience, disclose it, and to show the sincerity of his contrition, 
disburden himself of his share of the recompense for it? The voyage laid aside, 
always a return of premium, — indeed, may it not be asked, whether the nana- 



62 Benson's memoir. — notes. 

live, in reference to the fact, the alleged corruption is reconcileable with itself 
throughout. The passage expressed, " that they came out to seek a vacuum 
domiciliuin in some part of the globe where they would, according to their own 
apprehensions, be free from the control of European power," certainly merits 
peculiar notice, and in my view of it, may serve satisfactorily for the inference, 
that these justly styled pilgrims, meritorious beyond commendation, forsook their 
homes without reflecting, and not unnatural, " distressed and perplexed as they 
were on every side," there was no such refuge, as they sought to be lound here, 
a space unclaimed, unoccupied and exempt from metropolitan control and intol- 
erance, for that their sovereign had already granted the whole of the coast, with 
extensive adjacent territory, to their fellow subjects, the patentees, the merchants 
of London, or the merchants of Plynioi )>, mentioned by Hutchinson, so that 
when they parted from the shores of the one continent, it was with no other than 
a general destination to reach those of the other by the most direct course the 
winds should jtermit ; and assuredly we must presume for them, they were whol- 
ly unaware that the instant they landed, with intent «o ;;ossess, they were, by 
the law which necessarily followed them, to be declared trespassers on the pro- 
perty of others. 

No. IX.— Page 104. 

Perhaps what is already found in the text of the Memoir, on the subject to 
which this note relates, miuht be deemed sufficient whence to collect the whole 
of the character of the Dutch Colonists ; for, if not too far fetched, may not stabil- 
ITV, and especially as it regards "communities, be considered so the greater, as 
necessarily to contain or imply, every other quality, however estimable, as the 
less. But it having been intimated that, although there is sufficient, and possi- 
bly some may think even to spare, as to the " cities," the abodes of the " men," 
the inhabitants ; still that a modicum more as to their "manners," would not 
come amiss ; hence the few following paragraphs. The distinction between the 
two classes, under the degree of knighthood, and to borrow the English terms 
whereby to denote them gentlemen, or those entitled to bear arms, to show de- 
scent, and yeomen, prevailed in Holland, not less than elsewhere throughojt 
Europe, at the period of the settlement of the country by the Dutch ; with an 
exception, therefore, of those who came over in public trust, and a few more, 
still capable to trace their family to a colony original of note or condition, the 
others, generally, husbandmen, mechanics, or traders; and therefore, probably 
not more than one, in some scores, a gentleman, in its sense as defined, and so 
no other ancestry to boast, than honest parentage. It may be perceived from 
the text of the Memoir, that I have not an opinion widely diffeient as to the 
English colonists — " that however faultless their lives and fidelity, still as to 
race and revenue, both alike plebeian, and not more of nobility in the one than 
the other." 

Negro slavery, common at the time, to all the Colonies on our continent, 
whichsoever of the European States the metropolitan— so far, perhaps, in exten- 
uation. A milder form of it than among the Dutch of New Netherlands, scarcely 
to be imagined. The power of the master to punish, understood not to exceed 
moderate correction by stripes. Where a handicraft, there in the same workshop ; 
where a husbandman, there in the same field — the slave merely a fellow laborer 
with the master," fulfilling only the like task," — always partaking, and alike with- 
out stint, of the same fare, the fruit of their joint earnings. Still he was a slave, 
subject to the icill of another, his fellow man ; and assignable as the " beast, 
born to bear labor;" and surely not among the least of the mercies calling for 
praise ; it has been given to us in these latter days to see the injustice of the bon- 
dage. It can hardly be said of the Dutch, they were laborious — a more qualified 
term will suit better — they were diligent ; at no time wholly idle ; on the con- 
trary, constant and persevering; whatever begun always sure to finish it, and 
nothing ever slighted — always to finish and never to slight ; not a little of con- 
comitant character implied in it, and certainly the discretion " when intending to 
build, of setting down first and comiting the cost." 



Benson's memoir. — notes. 03 

Their women, truly assiduous in what appertained to tliem ; wiliiess the well 
kneaded. lonf, than which, a not more certain sign of housewifery : and adepts in 
cleansing, therefore excelling peculiarly in the dairy ; hence the well wrought 
rolls, the companion of the loaf; bread and butter, the holer-lutm ot Holland, 
constituting, accordingly, the greater pro[)ortion of the solid food of the family. 

The Dutch were upright and undisguised in all their intercourse, and hence, 
the confidence among them with each other, entire. They were frugal. Here, 
possibly, we may hesitate to commend unqualifiedly. Labor is life, the absence 
otit, the absence of life ; no limit, therefore, to acquisition. 

The more knowledge, the more the means of happiness; the more wealth, the 
more the means of knowledge. This is earning, but the lesson to save, is to be 
practised with great caution, fioni its almost inevitable tendency to the excess 
of it, tiie habit to hoard. The prodigal may ha reclaimed from " icaste," but 
we have no instance warranting hope of the miser. That the Dutch Colonists 
should be distant and reserved to strangers, and more so it difi'eriiig from them 
in language, would scarcely be to be censured in them ; they were, however, 
wholly free from incivility or rudeness ; and certainly not wanting in hospitality. 
The poor, and "especially those of the household of faith," indigent communi- 
cants, maintained by the congregation; and duly mindful of the apostolic injunc- 
tion, the Sunday gatherings for them continued to the present day. A remiss- 
ness, it must be acknowledged, in them ; no provision for the education of their 
youth. The prevalence of their language, lor a great length of time, even after 
the surrender of the Colony to the English, and their blameworthy attachment 
to it, were impediments to be left to time to remove ; and to which may be 
added, that, prior to the close of the war, in 1763, comparatively few strangers 
of British birth came to reside here. It was from a necessity, imposed on the 
New England Colonists, but assuredly not detracting from the merit of it, to 
train and rear, from among themselves, those who should be qualified to contend 
for the faith, held, by them, the same " once delivered to the saints." Not so 
with the Dutch. Their removal hither, wholly spontaneous ; the sole induce- 
ment, gain either as traders or cultivators. Their clergy, accordingly, during the 
period alluded to, natives of Holland, and there educated. At the same time it 
ought to be mentioned to their credit, that their first care, after providing for 
their own im nediate safety and subsistence, was to form themselves into con- 
gregations, build churches, and call ministers. 

The call always addressed to the Classis of Amsterdam, the churches in the 
colonies being considered as confided to their rule and care. The Dutch clergy 
being diligent as catecliists, the doctrines of the mother Church have through the 
successive generations, continued to be taught with undeviating fidelity and pu- 
rity ; and on a marriage, and as an article of indispensable garnishment in the 
house, the folio Bible was procured, literally in boards, and with clasps of brass 
correspondently stout; and reading it in the family, the usual Sunday evening 
employment, and, with the te.xt, always the marginal notes, occupying the greater 
portion of the pages; and still to be resorted to as a just comment. They were 
temperate. Indeed, and in a word, it may safely be said of them, they were 
icithout vice; and perhaps, peculiarly possessing a wisdom doubtless unspeaka- 
bly beneath that which is fkom above, and, although 7?eg'rt/jre, still having its 
value, the " first" or highest " wisdom" of Gentilism, they were without folly; 
it being certain that conceit, vanity, afTectation, caprice, or nonsense, in any ot its 
endless modifications, if ever found among the Dutch, rarely so. 

Such were our grandsires, the Dutch Colonists ; their grandsires, the first in 
the history of nations, who resisted intolerance and oppression, and succeeded. 
No other boast here than that, it is yet to happen that their sons have failed to 
prove themselves worthy of their lineage. 

No. X.— Page 104. 

The pales, enclosing the City Hail, have, since the memoir, been removed, and 
their place supplied by a railing of iron ; and, in addition, it is new farther to be 



/ 



64 renson's memoir, — notes. 

hid witliin rows of trees ; a proper precaution ; because should we apprehend the 
effect of a view of it, ALL AT o.vcE, iiiigiit be more than we could well bear, we 
may then take it piece-meal, by peeping from different points, over the railing, 
through the openinj^s ; and which will be (piite enough to satisfy us, if curious to 
know it, whether it actually rests on a base, orhke the mausoleum, the wonder, it 
is borne in the air. . 

I believe we are alone in t!ie prac:ice of emhowering our public structures of 
style — perhaps entitled to the very merit of having introduced it. The Dutch 
Church in William sireej, a rare specimen of correct architecture — rare, as posses- 
sing simplicity and unity, and peculiarly approju-iate for a Christian Church ; 
where it is not only permitted to the votaries, but enjoined on them to assemble 
icithiii the temple ; hence the rorlico of the Pagan, lor the acconunodation of any 
to remain without, not there. This building, so creditable to us, is to be sought for 
in a grove of button-wood. " Abraham planted a grove, and therecalied on the 
name of the Lord." Afterward expressly forbidden to his posterity ; " thou shalt 
not plant there a grove near unto the altar of the Lord ;" from its tendency a rule 
for estimating whether we are to do or to forbear the worth of it seldom estima- 
ted ; to repeat it, " from its tendency to fallacious, hence hurtful associations — 
the gloom of the shade — the gloom of the gothic cloister — their effect on the im- 
agination to pass for real solemnity of mind — the " contemplatiorr' of the in- 
mates of the last declared " HEAVEi\i,Y !" "All the land which thou seest, to 
thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever; and I will make nations of thee ; 
and kings shall come out of thee ; and I w.ll establish my covenant to be a God 
unto thee and thy seed after thee." 

These promises, and the command, " thou shall not," notwithstanding, the 
heirs of the promises would have their groves for their false worship, until " they 
were smitten for it, and scattered beyond the River." " There have been converts 
from atheism ; from snperstilion none, or ver}- rare." More of truth and force 
in this sentiment, more cases where applicable, than perhaps we are aware. 

No. XL— Page 106. 

" I hequeath my political opinion." Is not this, I bequeath my political wis- 
dom? 1 bequeath it to my "country." Except writing one's own Life, can a 
weakness, or vanity, beyond it, be conceiverl ? Does not the opinion resolve it- ■ 
self into this — that, to preserve the government /ree, you must contrive it to go 
without the impulse oi hire for labor. Another sage in mind, morals and relig- 
ion, about of the same mould : in science about of the same attainment ; knowing 
something' oi ^\mos\. all thmgs, irasirr thoroughly so, oi none, referred to in the 
sequel, as will be perceived, and also in reference to the subject of ^oi-er/;?tte«i, 
and especially as discoursing gravely about the happiness of a flock of sheep, and 
their being under the care of the wolf, and their option to withdraw from it, and 
take ca7-e of themselves, pronounced " o?<r Franklin, at fourscore, the okname.nt 
ofhumaii nature." 

Note — suppletory to the above. 

We have Franklin Counties; Franklin Towns ; Franklin Streets, Franklin 
Banks; Franklin Markets; Franklin Hearths; Franklin Gridirons; in short. 
Churches hitherto excepted, we have scarcely a genus of entity among us, with- 
out a species, or at least an individual of it, and the Doctor's name not adjectively 
prefixed in memorial of his own excellence, and thereby to " signify it as a pro- 
perty or quality in the thing named ;" and finally, as if to crown it, one of the firs', 
rates in our navy, named after him ; although not bred to the sea, or ever in bat- 
tle : on the contrary, his general deportment indicated a preference for" pacivity ;" 
so that it would n«t have been more out of the way for the administration, had 
they been of a religioso sect, to have called the ship after Job, as the most patient, 
or after Moses, as the most 7neek of inen. Congress, by declaring the subjects to 
furnish the names, all of them importing jjlare, in exclusion of j^erson, have wisely 
guarded against sectarian predilection in future. 



BEXSOn's memoir. NOTES. "^ 

Ex,r„ct from Mr. W,h„er's Di«our.., delivered .t Flymou.h, 22 December, 

'^?"w':rrfi;«'r::r;':t5-ri™ 

age of Fr,,il.,^ The DocMr >ome > _^,,^^^„,_^| ,, |,i,„„,^ ,„„,„i„„ed 

tab ex "f the M mi the o'lSer, hi. Biography, by hi, grandson, since h.s 



"TheTa'ssacre alluded to, was to the purport, that his mother told hhii, if he were 
dilSmThn rove Mu,selVia learning and knowledge he -'g [ co.ne to he the 
conTpanion of princes; and which he conceived to ^^''^^f^^^'l^J'^Xjrhe 
when in Encrland, the beginning of the last reign, as ^^g'-'"^^"' P'^""^™: ^ 
was invited'to the dinner given by the city of London to '- ^^'^f^^ ^f ".^^^ J" 
Little did he dream of the more an^e ac.omplis^ 

4 VST n ie STr royalty ; he is now, and for attributed personal pre-emmence, his 
fu"; e ;;;:tl t7be rL^ed to the very peerage itself of E-Pe-s ajid King.^^^^^ 
have heard of an A-e called after Augustus of Rome ; of one, cal ed attei a l>e%v is 
of France her^afVe^ we are to hear of one called after Franklin of America ; 
"iJa desc'endrt of he heretic-banishing, infidel-anathematizmg, puritan forefa- 
Xers of New Emrland, who, on landing at Plymouth, as has been careful y handed 
downt uslnhe last'fifty of the two hundred years iromthe event all ste^pi^ed n 

the same rock, presenting himself as the ^^f ,^^'^«^^' S':,;"5;i^^, ""'^^hore henc^^^ 
has lately been weighed from the ooze, and brought high and dry ashore , nence 
T. ve-. Iv visU U) U since In European Christendom, pilgrimages may be said 
o ha L 1 o J suse forages. But, may itnot be asked, whether there is iiot 
an ob^Jction to our taking on ourselves to have an age, and to be suspected as not 
hav nfoccmred o^, if soTnot fully considered^ ^o illustme, by the Augustan 
or Roman acre there not having been a due " series of years, or flight ot time, 
to pioirnS on the immortality^ of the French age ; and so, ^t Fesen'j ^^^^^^^^^ 
petent to serve as a precedent. The Augustan Age has b^'";^™^^^ ^^^^^^ 

writers who flourished in it; and the n^>"«^^°'"P^7•^,'^'t'° ^"f^r^tr^hev 
reicrnthe era, and to whose patronage it is intended to be asciibed, that they 
reign me era, auu ^^,^^^/.r tUp,,, go excelling; we however select the pa- 

were so numerous, and every ot them so exceuuio , , , , . cnmrised 

tronfrom the veryranks of the writers themselves ; ;"'^' \f ^"^^^^^^^.^'^"'fS ^ he 
if we were to have the whole European monarchy ^^^^''''"IZTl-elty^^^^^^^ 
innovation, not less unclassical than incongruous For granting ^e have the re 
quisite complement of them, even with the Doctor ^jf ^ ^ ^^/^PJ J ,^^^^^^^^ 
celebrity to pass as, and for the American Classics ; still, the specihed corre ative, 
iiS, prince, reign, and patron wanting, the objection remains, and we, of 
course, as yet, not susceptible of an Age. 

" Thl.'fd[;:Sg"is"t«er7r;m Dr. Franklin to the celebrated Mr. Whitefield. 
HisideLo rXlnare given in a more favorable light than son.e have been 
w 1 ng to place tliem. His tenets were at variance with the estabishedfaih^ 
No pel-son, however, can doubt that he possessed the essentials. If ^f ""'^i^^ 
bhrSian ;irtue, then Franklin's life illustrated it." Thus far the editor. Now 



" Fo my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon 
myself as Conferring favors, but as paying debts. In my l^-^^l^'^f^^^'J^ 
seftlement, I '- received muc^ 
^Z ^^^S^S^^i^^^^ hy our services. Those kind- 



66 



BENSON S MEMOIR. NOTES. 



nesses from men I can, therefore, only return on their fellow men ; and I can 
only show my-gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his 
other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, 
though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and 
much less those to our Creator. You will see, in ihis, my notion of good works ; 
that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven, we under- 
stand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I can do 
nothing to deserve such rewards. He that, for giving a draught of water to a 
thirsty person, should e.xpect to he paid with a good plantation, is modest in his 
demands compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good 
they do on earth. Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjov in this world, 
are rather from God's goodness, than our merit ; how much more such happiness 
of heaven ! 

" For my own part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve, the folly to expect, 
nor the ambition to desire it ; but content myself in submitting to the will and dis- 
posal of that God who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and 
in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me misera- 
ble ; and that even th(^ afflictions I may at any time siiflrr, shall tend to my benefit. 
The faith you mention, has certainly its use in the world ; I do not desire to see it 
diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were 
more productive of good works, than I have generally seen it. I mean real good 
works : works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit ; not holiday keeping, 
sermon reading, or hearing ; performing church ceremonies, or making long 
prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised by wise men, and much 
less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty ; the hearing 
and reading of sermons may be useful, but if men rest in hearing and praying, as 
many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting 
forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit. Your great master thought much 
less of these outward appearances and professions than many of his modern disci- 
ples. He preferred the doers of the word to the mere hearers — the son that seem- 
ingly refused to obey his father, and yet performed his commands, to him that 
professed his readiness, but neglected the work ; the heretical, but charitable Sa- 
maritan, to the uncharitable, though orthodox Priest and sanctified Levite ; and 
those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, 
entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, though they never heard of 
his name, he declares shall at the last day, be accepted, when those who cry 
Lord ! Lord ! who value themselves upon their faith, though great enough to 
perform miracles, but have neglected good works, shall be rejected. He pro- 
fessed that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance ; which 
implied his modest opinion, that there were some, in his time, who thought them- 
selves so good that they need not hear even him for improvement ; but now- 
adays, we have scarce a little parson that does not think ii the duty of every 
man, within his reach, to sit under his petty ministrations, and that whoever 
omits them offends God. I wish to such,.more humility, and to you, health and 
happiness, being your friend and servant." 

I give the above, as I found it in a Cazenovia paper, 1818. Another 
copy appeared in an Albany paper, 1820, with the Doctor's name sub- 
scribed, and a date, as to time, 1753; but without a direction. A short intro- 
ductory paragraph, wanted in the copy here presented, mentions it as having 
been written on the fourth day from the date of the one to which it purports to 
be an answer. Rather off hand. It is obviously studied. The Doctor's art has 
here failed him " to conceal his art." In 1752, the Doctor was in America, and 
Whitefield in England, so that the suggestion of the Cazenovia editor, that the 
latter was the correspondent, not possible to be true.* Tliese two copies must 

f*ln Sparks' edition of the worlds of l'>;iiil<liii, vii. 74, may be foiuid the letter to White- 
field, referred to by our iiiithor. It Ijears date, Philadelplpia, Cth June, 1753. In a note Mr. 
Sparks says, — " the alxtve letter has often been printed, and always, I believe, as hav- 
ing been written to Whitefield ; but among the author's manuscripts, I tind the tirst draft, 
witli the following endorsement, in Franklin's liand-vMiling ; '' Letter to Joseph Uuey." 
—Editor. ] 



Benson's memoir. — notes. 67 

have boen rt'priiitiNl from ilistinrt pnpei's, servinnr as originals to the i-especiive 
editions. The Di)('ti>r liimstlf, doubtless, furnished the copy in the first instaiice-i 
for publication ; abundnnt proof beiiicr to be found, in ahnanacs and newspapers, 
of his readiness to comply with the rule, " for you to know is nothing, unless you 
give it lo another, that he also know what you know ;" indeed I presume there 
never was a y/cefi/of/s letter, and so the whole a /V/6/e, to be denominated the 
apolosriie of the Doctor and his/p/^wecZ correspondent — wholly nexc; a species of 
ihe foreiisick ; and the question the Doctor makes his conespondent propound 
by way of cliallenue, is whether faith, without works, not preferable to works 
without faith ? The Doctor negatiir. Now, as faith without w-orks is dead, 
and so no iaith ; and as works, not done in faith, are not acceptable, and so no 
works, the terms explained, the question vanishes. There is, in one view of 
them, a difference, material in the question, of more or less merit — if such a 
question there can be ; m.^rtyrs have suffered for the f;iith which " came to them 
by HEARING," sucli the appointed means ; /( o?-A-.s, and peculiarly those specified 
by the Doctor, and distinguished by him as real good works, have, as they ought 
to have, the praise, and so the reward of men ; but hence, not possible the doers 
should ever be called to duffer ior them. The Doctor vouches the great teacher, 
" that the doer.'i are to bi* preferred to the hearers of the word." True, but why 
not vouch him, when replying to the inquiry of his followers, "what they were 
to do to work the works of God." The reply — " the work of God is to believe 
on him whom he hath sent." To have cited this teaching, as it would have 
been an acknowledgment of faith in the messenger, and of course, in the mes- 
sage, " that he came to save that which was lost," would have been in the phrase- 
ology of disputants, and now, from ?/se legitimately English, a felo de se ; the very 
pith of the moral, or rather iitterpretation, of the Doctor's fable being, man never 
lost; never a lapse of him. Peculiar praise oi good works, when in contrast 
with faith, and especially, as in the present instance, if an entire silence, at the 
same time, as to those which are evil, ever to excite suspicion, there is something 
vnlily intended, and you would never have persuaded the jealous, shrewd, 
earnest puritan, the pilgrim, otherwise than that, in the t) otiox^s preachment 
about them, he saw the very cleft track, throughout. There is a rule, " that 
what you dare not do directly, you shall not betake yourself to do it oldiquely/^ 
Rather strict for constant observance — an avowed, or direct attack on Christianity, 
not always safe. These parsons, with their lank heads, and their long prayers, 
"filled with flatteries and compliments to the Deity ;" ^flatteries and cotnpliments 
to the most liigh and all-perfect ! When the pen indited this sentence, ought 
we not, in charity, to suppose an entire suspension of thought ior the moment? 
These pargons, to repeat it," little " and big, like their predecessors of old, at times 
thwarting and troubling the phdosophic Israel, a host, and not a few of ihem, 
masters in the science of argument, the Doctor, therefore, aware, not discreet 
to measure weapons with them ; the more so, as skill in eclectics to discern the 
relation between premises and consequence, not his best skill. Take a sample from 
his reasonings before us. " I have not the vanity to think I deserve heaven as 
reward, nor the foUy to expect it as of merit, but content myself in submitting to 
the disposal of that God who made me, and who has hitherto preserved and 
blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I will confide, that he never will 
make me miserable ;" so that, because his Maker has blessed him in a state of 
probation here, therefore he will bless him in a state of retribution hereafter — 
how logiralli/ ']nst ihe deduction! To notice, and merely to notice, a single 
expression more, and to finish. " God will never make me miserable." Whence 
has Doctor Franklin it, that the Creator ever makes his creatures miserable? 
Is not the inisery oi man, wholly chargeable on himself, no faith in the revela- 
tion his Creator has vouchsafed him of the means to be saved from it ? 

No. XII.— Page 107. 

The Bank of New York was not incorporated by the legislature until 1791, a 
period of six years from its establishment, during which it was a partnershij), ihtJ 



68 bensom's memofr. — notes. 

stockholders as partners, liable in their several persons and estates, on the notes 
or bills; still doing business vfith like credit and like profit to themselves and ac- 
commodation to the public, as afterwards. The restraining act was passed in 
1804, and in the intermediate time five other banks were incorporated, and they 
have multiplied since, to the session of 1816, inclusive, to twenty more ; and of 
them a number, I leave it to every one to enquire and ascertain it for himself 
where, his believed, in the community, the incorporation proceeded not from 
worthy motives, in those who granted it, or was obtained by lamentably unworthy 
means, by those who applied for it — such among the effects of a law, in unnatu- 
ral or arbitrary restraint of individual faculty and volition — that the banks have 
refused to redeem their notes, among the effects of incorporation — one proof 
among others, and not to be numbered, that abuse and corruption must be the 
effect, whenever the government, and the more free the form, the dani'er of the 
evil not less to be shunned, the evil itself being surely more to be dreaded, will 
not be regardful to limit itself in the exercise of the powers entrusted to it, to their 
simple, sole, legitimate object, Protection ; to defend me against hostility from 
without, against violence and fraud fiom within, and to provide the requisite 
means for me to compel others " to render to me my own ;" a due administration 
of justice, and then only to be superadded those regulations, no term more apt 
occurring, which vtility, restricted in its sense, to scarcely more than the opposite 
of inconvenience, and all partaking of rule, may suggest — this the whole neces- 
sary ; the whole I am entiiled to require from the government, and consequently 
the whole it is held to afford me — this the measure between us of my rights and 
its duties, and " the law of these duties fulfilled," the government will find it has 
nothing to spare for supererogation. 



Note — Supi^letory to the above. 

Protfction against violence and fraud, and none against slander ? None! 
Each one to be the keeper, and so the protector, of his own character. Let him 
be what he ought to be ; diligent, temperate, upright, heedful ; his life " the shield 
to quench the dart." Was it ever known, that a person of character, truly so, 
went to law for it I A solecism in conduct. " Actions on the case for words," 
still a title in our code. Protection, the sole duty of the government? Most 
assuredly — for what is government? May it not be defined in a sentence ? The 
best ;?r«r^/>«/ combination of private or separate rights with public or aggregate 
force. Why the entire surrender of private or separate property to the govern- 
ment? For the sake of aggregate force. Why aggregate force? For the 
sake of mutual safety. If so, then, when the government requires from me a 
portion of my property, or " substance" for any other purpose, doth it not usurp 
on my private or separate volition or option, whether I will, or will not con- 
tribute, and especially if the purpose partake of eleemosynary ! surely, alms, 
falsely so called, if by coercion. A surrender of my life to the government ; en- 
titled to require from me to expose it to the forlorn hazard. The same question 
occurs here, and the same answer. For what purpose ? General or mutual 
safety. In a word ; why the pabhc purse at the disposal of the government ; or 
to make the illustration more apt, to substitute the term " ruler?" Because the 
trust in him to bear the public sword, and not in vain, but as the means to enable 
him to bear it " as a revenger to execute wrath on those that do evil." It has been 
stated, that one branch oi protection is " to provide the means to compel others to 
render to me my own." Are not courts of justice emphatically the ineans? 
What is a government, and however to be preferred as more free, not having an 
enlightened, impartial, efficient administration of justice? He, who, though he 
have the utterance of an angel, a knowledge to understand all mysteries, a fa th to 
■REMOVE mountains, a beneficence toothers to the impoverishment of himself, and 
the zeal of a martyr, what is he if he have not love ? ^ ound ; noise ; nay, nothing. 



Benson's memoir. — notes. 69 

No. XIII.— Page 109. 
"In Congress — 1th August, 1783. 

" Resolved, unanimously, (ten States being present,) thnt an Equestrian Statue 
of General Washington be erected at the place where the residence of Congress 
shall be established — that it be of bronze — tliat the General be represented in 
a Roman dress, holdinga truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with 
a laurel wreath — that it be supported by a marble pedestal, on which are to be 
represented, in basso relievo the following principal events of the war, in which 
the General commanded in person, viz: the evacuation of Boston — the capture of 
the Hessians at Trenton — the battle of Princeton — the action of Monmouth, and 
the surrender of York. On the upper part of the pedestal to be engraved as fol- 
lows: The United States, in Congress assembled, ordered this Statue to be erec- 
ted in the yearof our Lord, 1783, in honor of George Washington, the illustri- 
ous Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States of America, during 
the war which vindicated and secured their Liberty, Sovereignty and Indepen- 
dence." The inquiry. — Whence this Vote, or Vow, still unfulfilled ? The an- 
swer — according to the Memoir, the money grudged. 

No. XIV.— Page 114. 

Quicvnque vult — the name, in churches having rituals, for the Athanasian 
Creed, being the initial words of the Latin version of it. The Episcopal Con- 
vention in this country, on a revision of the Articles of Religion, established by 
them, omitted it ; hence it no longer serves as one of their confessionals, or tests. 

No. XV.— Page 116.. 

The Rhyme— 

" In Adam's fall. 
We sinned all." 

Qu. — Can you ever convince the sc;ibe and disputer, that such the " origin of 
evil," as long as their learning and wisdom fail to serve their chief purpose, to 
them, to convince them how much they lack both 1 

No. XVI.— Page 121. 

The fact of a tradition among the Indians of Long Island, of a war between 
the Evil Spirit and those of Connecticut, about the territory, and of his being 
worsted, and retreating to the Island, crossing the Sound at Frog's Point, by 
stepping from rock to rock, it happening to be low water, and collecting the rocks 
on the Island in heaps at Cold Spring, and, out of revenge, throwing them across 
the Sound, defacing Connecticut with ihem, as we now see it ; and then a tra- 
dition among the whites, that the Indian tradition of the passage of the Sound 
suggested to the first settlers the name for the line of rocks, the Stepping Stones, 
and that the Indians whom the whites found there insisted they could see the print 
of the feet on the shore, I had from the late Mr. L'Hoinmedieu, a native of the 
Island ; and that not uncommon, even in his time, whenever a Connecticut man a 
Long Islander met, and a mug or two of cider between them, to hear the jeer 
from the one, and the retort from the other ; so that possibly, I have, in proportion 
as much fact for my episode, as Virgil, my precedent, as will have been perceived 
from my motto, for the choice of the subject. Names, had for most of his — like 
him, too, I have my hero, the Dutch, and have had also to distinguish, at times, 
between the pius jEneas and the dux Trojanno ; witness their religious tolera- 
tion for the sake oi trade, and Skipper Block's Ilelle-gat. 

On conversing with some who have perused the Memoir, it would seem that 
an object for which the war, between the Indians and the Evil Spirit, has a place 



70 Benson's memoir. — notes. 

in it, the lesson, the allegory, of the loarfare between man and the adversary , 
the enemy of his peace and bliss, and what, and whence the recruits to " keep 
his heart and mind" entire for the watching and enduring, if to hope to prevail, 
had escaped heed. 

No. XVir.— Page 12."?. 

This sketcli of tlie Indian, is from personal observation or knowledge, having 
been repeatedly in the commission to hold treaties with them ; not that I have 
witnessed their torments to their prisoners, or a ivoman the avem^er of blood, or 
the /j-flo" to serve for food, — the first is ofvmiversal notoriety, the second I had 
from the late Mr. Staats,ol the Hooge-bergh, aboLii four miles below Albany, ad- 
jacent to the river, where the scene was transacted, my informant, at the time 
a lad in the fimily of his father there. The victim sat on a log at the shore 
his hands covering his face, and his elbows resting on his knees — the woman re- 
coiled twice, but urged on by the men, and with sternness, she advanced a third 
time, and at the first stroke, sunk the tomahawk into his skull. She shrieked 
and fainted. For the third, I might also rely on notoriety; I still vouch the 
late General Schuyler and .Judge Dunne; the latter had it from the late Sir 
William Johnson, with this addition, that not unfrequent with them to enrich 
the mess with the lice, the product of their own laziness and filth. Should the 
whole be conceived a little colored, p rhaps venial, it being only thereby to ex- 
pose, to a little more efl^ect, the affected admiration of the philosophic among us, 
of the man oi nature. 

No. XVIII.— Page 125. 

It appears I read my memoir at the very moment ; the demon having since, 
not only visited Connecticut, but it is feared, taken up his abode there ; those in 
cppositior, to the federal party, have, under a new name he has instigated them to 
assume, Tolerationists, prevailed at last in the elections throughout — the salutary 
habits of this people — coeval with them as a community — steady in them from 
the beginning — thanks to the Puritanism oi their Pilgrim forefathers, as they at 
times denote them, for both the habits and their steadiness in them — hitherto 
their pride — all, all, extinct ! 

No. XIX.— Page 129. 

In addition to the passage in the text, in italics, as to the principle of the Re- 
volution, the point between the Colonists and the mother country, the following 
further extracts from the Note mentioned in Note No. 6 ; New Jersey, as a 
distinct o-round of claim, insisting on a sovereignty as derived from the Revolu- 
tion — the extract: 

" Neither will any supposed change in the condition of New .Tersey by 
the Revolution iffect the case. The Parliament, or Legislature, of the 
mother country, claimed a right to pass laws binding on the Colonies. The 
Colonies claimed to be entitled to like rights with their fellow subjects in Britain, 
and so not bound by any law to which they did not assent, or in effect, to be 
sovereign, or independent of the parliament. Attempts were made to define 
the nature or extent of the sovereignty to be retained or enjoyed by the Colo- 
nies, or to establish r fundamental between the Parliament and them, and they 
to remain members of the empire, thereby to preserve the unity of it ; all of 
which failed, inasmuch as they would only have terminated in the incongruous 
and futile mode of government, an imperiuni in imperio ; and there being no 
alternative between an absolute submission to the will of the Parliament, and the 
empire remain entire, and ftn absolute independence of such will, and of course, 
or severance of the empire, the Colonists resolved on the latter. Such is the 
simple principle of the American Revolution. The question was limited as to 



BENSON S MEMOIR. NOTES. 



71 



parties, it being between the Parliament and the Colonists, and not between the 
Colonists themselves; and also as to its subject, it being a mere legal question 
arising in the British Constitution." 

Note — SupjHetonj to the above. 

Perhaps the question may more precisely be stated ; how the principle in the 
British Constitution, in regard to the people, they viewed as represented in the 
House of Commons, a branch of the Legislature, and so denominated when to be 
distinguished from the King and the Lords, the other two branches, legislation 
and representation inseparable, is to be applied to the people of the col- 
onies, in their relation to the people of the vietropulitan community, it not 
being jn-aclicable for them to jnirticipa.te in tiie representation. Wholly 
inapplicable, say the parliament ; and therefore, from necessity, we must 
legislate for them. Such our claim. No, reply the Colonists; there is 
an alternative in the case, and rightful for us to avail ourselves of it, to separate 
horn yon, ■uniX iorm representative governments of our own. Such our counter 
claim. This statement of the question results in a distinct and complete issue 
in law between the parties; and if so, does it not follow, that the instrument, 
the formal annunciation of the independence, usually known as the declaration 
of it, is misconceived ? Instead of leaving the controversy as resting on the 
meritsof the claim and counter claim oi right, abstracted i'rom fact, there being 
none in question between the parties, it enumerates a series of acts on the part 
o the government of the parent State, some by the King, separately, as in the 
exercise of his prerogative, others as conjunctly with the other two branches of 
the legislature, the whole charged as oppression, and the King thereupon de- 
nounced a tyrant. Admitting them, for the sake of the argimient, still they being 
with intent to enforce the claim, or overt-acts of it, they ought alike to have 
been resisted, even if as undetrimental, as an entry on lands to preserve a right. 
As proof they would have been resisted, to take the following, from the address 
of the lirst Congress, to the people of Great Britain. " Know then, that we con- 
sider ourselves, and do insist that we are, and ought to be, as free as our fel- 
low subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our 
j)rnper1y from us without our consent," — " that we will never submit to be 
hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ininistry or nation in the world ;" 
and, to add to the solemnity of the asseveration oi claim, the language of the 
Volume of the Book selected to express it. The whole peculiarly bespeaking 
the character of the individual who proposed it, John .Tay. It was not possible 
for us to recede, and no calculation our adversaries would not persist. Such the 
spjrti of 1774, to correct the anachronism of 1776. According to the general 
tenor, however, of the declaration, the actual oppressions charged in it, are 
made the cause, and to adopt its diction, for declaring ourselves absolved from 
all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between us 
and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be dissolved, or in a word, the 
cause of the Revolution; thereby not only placing it on other than its simple 
true grounds, but also obviously detracting from the merit of it. Abject those 
not resisting oppressions ; degrees more so, if the oppressor an individual tyrant. 
The reptile will turn when trodden on. In short, if the statement here, of the 
precise principle, or the point of the Revolution,, correct, then how much of the 
preamble to the declaration might not have been spared. Publicly reading it 
has become a part of the ceremonial when assembled to celebrate the anniver- 
sary of it. Introduced by the Tammany Society or Columbian Order, when in- 
stituted in 1787. The Memoir asserts the liberty of the Revolution an " origi- 
nal" liberty. What would we think of one, entitled to hold hy prescription, 
still insisting to hold by grant, and have it annually publicly proclaimed as his 
origin of right ? But is there not a farther,, and more serious question here ; 
and to be hoped hitherto not perceived ? This formula not known during the 
WAR for the Independence. The treaty of peace put an end to the struggle. 



72 Benson's memoir. — notes. 

Now the question : DiJ it not also, as from its very nature, impose it on the 
parties as a mutual duty between them, an OBr.ivioN of aggression ; or, in the 
diction of the divine pacificator, " a forgiveness of trespasses ?" 

No. XX.— Page 129. 

A CoBLEBS myself, and recommending the earliest search for a wife ! Is the 
hand, the pointer, less lo be heeded, when showing the 7-ight road to others, be- 
cause itself not going it ? Neither will I suppose the adage absolete ; " Nihil 
dulcius amico nionitorc." 

Epitaph of Prior, the poet, by himself in the reign of William the third : 

" Nobles and Heialds, by your leave, 
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior ; 

The son of Adam and Eve, 
Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher." 



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